And yet … we get incredibly close together in the initial value.
So my point is the Texas numbers and the Belgium numbers are probably both right.
I think you and I are in general agreement. Isn’t that worth leaving intact?
My question is what are they a right indication of?
If you are referring to actual fatality rates of COVID-19, then the CDC,WHO and pretty much every epidemiologist gives a much lower estimate.
The W.H.O. has faltered in many ways this year. I would not be surprised that WHO under-estimates the actual mortality rate to be only SIX TIMES the average flu mortality rate (in other words, 0.6% compared to the Flu’s 0.1%) - - when most other estimates put the true mortality rate at anywhere between 1% and 1.7% (in other words, ten to seventeen times the Flue’s 0.1%).
I have shared the reports of the CDC also.
The ICMRs (Indian council for medical research) seems to have arrived at an even lower value. I didn’t share that because i only have access to newspaper reports.
As of now, the consensus opinion among experts about the mortality rate of Covid-19 is 0.6%. Range of predictions is from 0.5% to 1.0% for WHO, and 0.5% to 0.8% for the CDC. ( I have already shared the links for this)
I don’t see any reason to write off this data. It might be wrong. But these are the best estimates available based on scientific studies.
I think we are too - I responded before you changed your post to the less ensnaring version.
The infection fatality rate for influenza is not well known but is likely much less than 0.1%.
Most estimates of the IFR for SARS-CoV-2 put it between 0.5% and 1.0%. It’s clearly been lower than that in some places, especially where mostly younger people have gotten infected: in Singapore, the case fatality rate, which is an upper bound on the IFR, is 0.05% so far. In some places it’s probably been higher than that range as well.
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The reason to write off the CDC data is the very likely influence on that entity by the White House administration… and the fact Texas, which is not dominated by the Democratic Party, has raw data that indicates a much higher Actual Mortality Rate.
Below we see many countries with high Case Mortality Rates - - presumably because of their problems in testing the entire population. Contrast those numbers to the Case Mortality Rate of Korea, which seems to have had a pretty aggressive testing protocol.
The better the testing, the more plausibility that the Case Mortality Rate trends near to the Actual Mortality Rate:
Your graph shows the case fatality rate.
You are right that more extensive testing gives a better indication of fatality.
IFR is calculated by conducting random testing of a large number of people (irrespective of whether they show symptoms or not). The percentage of people who test positive is assumed to indicate the percentage of people infected in the area, and the total number of infected people is estimated that way.
Such random testing has shown that the actual number of people infected are many times more than the number of cases recorded. This is true in India, the US, and most other countries.
The estimates of actual cases are sometimes 10 times more than the cases recorded.
So, you end up with a much lower fatality rate.
If we repeated this process with influenza we may see the same results, except with a much lower fatality rate than COVID-19.
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I never made any claims about the IFR of influenza.
Maybe you are correct. Can you share some data on this?
All I was pointing out is that there is very little reason to think that Covid-19 has an IFR around 1.7%.
Yes, agreed.
What we are disagreeing about is whether 0.6% vs. > 1.0% is the more likely Actual Fatality Rate.
You favor 0.6%, which is about six times the usual Flu mortality rate (0.1%).
I favor at least 1.0%, which would be TEN times the usual Flu mortality rate. The discussions on Belgium and Texas data suggests that could well be closer to 1.5% (or 15 times the Flu rate).
I know. What I am doing is trying to compare COVID-19 to seasonal flu because that is ultimately what will define a pandemic and a dangerous virus.
I found this:
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Its interesting and encouraging in a way.
I expect the IFR to reduce over time with -
a. Better treatment protocols.
b. Increased natural immunity among human beings leading to lower IFR over time.
The Spanish flu is an interesting example. It disappeared in a year as far as i understand.
what do you think are the chances of Covid-19 “disappearing” like the spaish flu did?
Thanks, that’s a valid point.
Why don’t you list a vaccine?
The Spanish flu is still circulating today.
I assumed a vaccine would prevent an infection and not effect the IFR (the percentage).
Does it have an impact on severity of the infection also? Do you expect vaccines to impact the fatality rate after a person is infected?
But its nowhere near as deadly as it was in 1918. I guess due to better immunity and better treatment.
Interestingly enough the official number of people who die of seasonal flu in India is very low as per govt records. Only a couple of thousand or so per year.
Almost,no one uses the flu vaccine here.
So either lesser people die of the seasonal flu in India or the government is really messing up on reporting deaths.