We could be vastly overestimating the death rate for COVID-19. Here's why

[mystery-ak]

04 Apr 2020

    Nina Schwalbe
    Member of the Council on Foreign Relations; Principal Visiting Fellow, United Nations University International Institute for Global Health



    A lack of adequate testing means many of those who have been infected with the coronavirus will not appear in official statistics.
    This suggests that many estimates for its mortality rate are much too high.
    We need to build better systems for sharing and reporting data.

Public health epidemiology is the science of counting to prevent disease and promote health. We count the number of new cases of a particular disease; this is the incidence. Then we count how much a disease has spread in a population; this is the prevalence.

When it comes to COVID-19, counting is a challenge. Despite all the news articles and reports, we know very little about the incidence or prevalence of this new disease. And as is always the case: ignorance breeds fear. In my hometown of New York City and elsewhere one fear is on just about everyone’s mind: death rates here appear to be considerably higher than rates reported elsewhere.

more
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/we-could-be-vastly-overestimating-the-death-rate-for-covid-19-heres-why/

[truth_seeker]

author:

Nina Schwalbe
    Member of the Council on Foreign Relations; Principal Visiting Fellow, United Nations University International Institute for Global Health
UN=1948

CDC=1948 (with 15,000 employees today)

"We" oughta be doing much better.

[mountaineer]

Everyone has an opinion, especially those who have ever been tangentially tied to some government bureaucracy that might have the slightest thing to do with public health. Even Chelsea Clinton tweeted that she should be considered an expert on the matter. Personally, I'm tired of all the chatter.