Mortality Statistics of Covid-19

Coronavirus

The reported mortality rate has varied across the world.  China’s mortality is about 2-4% depending on the region.  Iran is thought to be underreporting its mortality but even then data suggested 7-8% mortality.  Italy had the highest mortality of 8-9% thought partiality related to the age of the population.  Italy’s demographics is heavily weighted toward older population. The mortality is highly related to age. Less than 1% of those that are under the age of 50 years have died from it. 3.6% of 60-year olds and 8% of 70-year olds and 14.8% of 80-year olds have died from this disease. Medical comorbidities are very important with regards to the mortality in this disease. 10.5% of patients with cardiovascular disease will die from the condition if they develop SARS-CoV-2. The numbers for diabetes are 7.3%, COPD 6.3%, hypertension 6%, and cancer 5.6%.

South Korea and Germany have reported much lower mortality of 1.2-1.3%.  We don’t know if that has to do with more testing and therefore revealing higher number of infected patients.

The mortality also has to do with the method of reporting.  Take for example a 85 year old man with severe oxygen dependent emphysema with lung cancer who has an expected lifespan of 3 months and develops COVID-19.  Is his death related to COVID-19? The answer is yes.  Would he have died from cancer or emphysema? The answer is also yes. So do we statistically assign his mortality to emphysema or cancer or COVID-19? .  So you get my point. I think it is very important that we understand the age adjusted , comorbidity adjusted numbers because we will be better able to assess the efficacy of drugs in treatment of the disease.  In the previous example, it is likely that no drug would prevent the inevitable unfortunate mortality.

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