Coronavirus Statistics

                                              

Doris Burke, Virus survivor

I’ve been tracking the coronavirus statistics compiled by The Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University for the past two weeks. As of March 29 the CSSE has reported that there are about 678720 known cases worldwide resulting in 31700 deaths so far. About 145000 of those cases have recovered although it would appear that recovery statistics lag behind.

For the past two weeks the number of reported cases has grown between 12 and 13 percent per day. Obviously, as more testing is done the number of cases will continue to increase. A couple of weeks ago, an alarming banner headline in my local newspaper reported that there were 6800 people in Connecticut infected with the virus despite the fact that at the time there were only 68 tested positive in the state.

A medical official with the State of Connecticut explained that although there was no way to estimate the effect of the coronavirus as yet, past experience with the flu would indicate that you must multiply by 100 the number of reported cases to get the true extent of the epidemic. In other words, 68 actual cases mean that at least 6800 people have been infected.

If we use this estimate, it would mean that over 67 Million people worldwide (678000 actual cases multiplied by 100) have already been infected with the virus. That translates into a death rate of .0004, much less than the death rate per actual cases. In other words, out of 1 Million people infected, approximately 470 will die from the corona virus, and most will be elderly with existing respiratory problems. Even if you drop the estimate in half and say that the actual reported cases should be multiplied by 50 rather than 100, the death rate would still be miniscule, and no more serious than it was in other flu seasons.

Worldwide, approximately 4% to 5% of reported cases have resulted in death. In the USA so far, approximately 124600 cases have resulted in 2300 deaths, about 1.8% of the total. The USA death rate compares very favorably with countries like Italy with a death rate of over 10% and the United Kingdom were the death rate is almost 6%. 

A columnist in yesterday's Wall Street Journal referred to two studies with differing approaches to the epidemic. The first called for a continuation of the current measures that amount to an almost complete shutdown of the economy. The other study proposed less draconian measures: seven-day isolation of those with symptoms, 14-day isolation of exposed households, and “dramatically reduced social contact for all those over 70 years of age.” 

My wife and I are both age 80 and although healthy, we have been in virtual quarantine for the past three weeks. I can understand the need since the great majority of people who have died have been elderly.  However, given the statistics cited above I believe that it is time for young people to go back to work, and for children to return to school. 

In today’s newspaper there was a story about a sportscaster for ESPN who was very sick for a couple of days, and decided to get tested. It took eight days to get the test results but sure enough, she tested positive for the coronavirus. Like most healthy people she quickly recovered and is probably able to get back to work. Moreover, it is very likely that she and the other millions who get infected by the virus will be immune from future attacks.

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