U.S. COVID-19 Fatality Rate Steady: About 1 Percent

[Elderberry]

National Review By Andrew C. McCarthy March 20, 2020

Like many Americans, I’ve been tracking statistical reports about the coronavirus pandemic. In particular, I’ve been closely following Worldometer, which seems reliable, covers the globe, and gets updated frequently. It has been frustrating, though, to try to find good breakouts on fatality rate numbers.

I do not mean to suggest that this information is not out there. It just does not get the same attention as the total number of cases and the total number of deaths.

Reporting those two stats in isolation makes them seem especially alarming. If, hypothetically, on Day One there were 100 cases, and on Day 5 there were 1,000 cases, that would be a very troubling rate of increase, though it could be mitigated by a number of factors. (For example, if testing has improved in the interim, the surge in reported cases could reflect better information about the overall phenomenon, rather than just a rapid spread of the disease.) Similarly, if there were ten deaths on Day 5 after only one on Day One, that jump would seem frightening . . . but it would be a proportional increase in fatalities given the tenfold jump in reported cases — assuming the fatality rate has been reliably established.

As John McCormack noted last weekend, the omnipresent Dr. Anthony Fauci, longtime director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, has testified that COVID-19 could be ten times more lethal than influenza. The latter has about a 0.1 percent fatality rate, so that suggests that the COVID-19 rate is about 1 percent. Yet, Dr. Fauci has written (in the New England Journal of Medicine), that “the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%,” if we assume that “the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases.”

More: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-pandemic-us-fatality-rate-steady-about-1-percent/#slide-1

[jmyrlefuller]

Consider also that a lot of the minor cases aren't being tested, which thus drives up mortality rates.

[Smokin Joe]

North Dakota as of 01:00 CDT, 3/21/2020
26 cases confirmed
2 hospitalized
0 deaths
60 monitored
938 tested (of which)
912 negative

Tested and infected: 2.7%
Tested and hospitalized: 0.2%
Infected and hospitalized: 7.7%

Mortality rate 0
6 of 53 counties affected with 1 case or more.

Still 150+ miles away.

[PeteS in CA]

Consider also that a lot of the minor cases aren't being tested, which thus drives up mortality rates.

Exactly. While the number of deaths will increase - sadly but realistically - the number of those tested and those found to be infected is likely to increase much faster.