Coronavirus Mortality Rates update 11

Well, this situation is now devastating and depressing. The coronavirus is now spreading across the world rapidly and does not appear to be under control in many countries. The curve has turned upwards sharply since early March. More than one national leader needs to be held responsible for their failure to properly and quickly respond to this. There was warning.

China continues to report very few new cases. On 11 March they had 80.9K cases. Fourteen days later they are at 81.6K cases. So it is only growing by around 50 cases a day. Last Wednesday morning it was 81,102, and it is now 81,588. This is 486 cases in six days or 81 cases a day. This is not quite contained. The same story with S. Korea (and North Korea has no cases?). If one relaxes some of the restrictions for the sake of getting the economy working again, what happens? I understand that Hong Kong has had this experience.

Country……….Cases……Deaths……Rate

World Wide……395,647….17,241….…4.40%

China.……………81,588……3,269……..4.01%

Italy………………63,927……6,077……..9.51%

United States……46,485……….551…….1.19%

Spain……………..39,673……2,696….…6.80%

Germany…………31,260….…..132…….0.42%

Iran………….……24,811……1,934……..7.79%

France……………20,149………860…….4.27%

Switzerland…….…9,117…….….43…….0.47%

S. Korea…….…….9,037………120……..1.33%

United Kingdom.…6,733………335…..…4.98%

Netherlands.………5,578.….….276……..4.95%

Austria………….…4,876..……….25………0.51%

Belgium….….….…4,269………122…..….2.86%

Norway……………2,715..……….12………0.44%

Portugal.…..………2,362….…….29……….1.23%

Sweden…..….……2,272…………36……….1.58%

Canada………….…2,088……..…24….…..1.15%

Australia……………2,044..…………8….…..0.39%

Brazil………………1,965…….…..34………1.73%

Denmark..….……..1,703……..….32………1.88%

Israel…….…………1,656…………..2………0.12%

Malaysia….…..……1,624…………15…..…0.92%

Turkey…………..…1,529…..….…37…..…2.42%

Czech Rep……..…1,289………..…2…..…0.16%

Japan………………1,140..……….42.……..3.68%

Ireland………..……1,125……….…6.………0.53%

Twenty-six countries around the world with over a thousand cases. Below is a list of some of the rest. Almost all of them will probably be over a thousand cases soon. These figures are heavily influenced by the degree of testing.

Country……….…Cases……Deaths……Rate

Ecuador.….……….…981……..…18………1.83%

Chile..……………..…922………….2….…..0.22%

Pakistan……….…….918……….…7….…..0.76%

Luxembourg.…….….875………..…8………0.91%

Thailand.…..…………827……….…4………0.48%

Poland………………..799……….…9…..….1.12%

Finland….……….…..792……….…1………0.12%

Saudi Arabia…………767…………..1………0.13%

Romania………….…762………..…8………1.04%

Greece..….……….….695……….…6………0.86%

Indonesia….……..….686…..……55……….8.02%

Iceland…………..…..648……….…2…….…0.31%

Singapore…..……….558…………2….……0.36%

South Africa…..…..…554……….…4……….0.72%

Philippines…….…….552………..35….……6.34%

India……………….…519…………10.…..…..1.93%

Qatar..………….…….501..……..…0………..0%

Russia…….…………495……….…1…….….0.20%

Slovenia….…………..480……….…4….……0.83%

Peru………………..…395……..…..5………..1.27%

Bahrain……….………390……….…3………..0.77%

Hong Kong….…….…386……….…4…..……1.04%

Estonia…..…….…..…369……….…0…..……0%

Mexico……………..…367……….…4…..……1.09%

Egypt…………..……..366……..….19……..….5.19%

A few other entities of interest to this author that have less than 366 cases so far:

Iraq…..……………..316..…………27…..…..8.54%

Lebanon……..….…304..……..……4…..…..1.32%

Algeria………..…….230…….……17………..7.39%

Taiwan………………215…………….2………..0.93%

San Marino…………187………….21……….11.23%

Hungary…………….187.………..…9…….….4.81%

New Zealand………155……………0……..…0%

Vietnam….…………123………….…0…….….0%

Ukraine………………97.…….….…3…………3.09%

Azerbaijan..……..…..87………….…1…….….1.15%

Afghanistan…………42….…………1…….….2.38%

Palestine…..………..26?……….….0….…….0%

North Korea..………..0……..…..…0…..….…0%

Syria……….…..……..0……..……..0…..….…0%

Yemen……….………..0……..……..0….…..…0%

Libya……….………….0………..…..0….…..…0%

Diamond Princess…712………11……..….1.54%

Part of my concern is the spread of the disease across the Middle East and Central Asia. There are a number of countries in the region still at war, including Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. How does one contain a virus in a country at war? Do they then serve as a vector for the rest of the countries in the region?

Data is from Johns Hopkins CSSE 3/24/20 as of 9:54.39 AM EST. It is here: Johns Hopkins CSSE

A few more observations:

1. It does appear that at best the mortality rate is around 1% if: 1) there is good health care and 2) there is good reporting.
   1. The 1% figure appears to be borne out by the reporting from South Korea and the more contained environment of the cruise ships.
      1. Still the South Korean mortality rates stands at 1.33%. I gather they have tested more than 300,000 people.
      2. The Diamond Princess deaths have now gone up to 11, for a 1.54% mortality rate. Is the mortality rate for an older population hovering around 2%?
   2. There are a few European countries with a reported rate of around 0.50%.
      1. Germany is at  0.42%
      2. Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Ireland are also in this range.
      3. Is this the best case scenario….or will these numbers continue to go up as more data comes in and unfortunately, more people become more ill. The German numbers do keep going up.
   3. The actual mortality rate is a big issue if one is going to do any estimate of potential impact (population * percent infected * mortality rate and modified by improvements in care and developments of vaccines). I have been thinking about post about this at some point…but…
      1. Do I do an estimate based upon a rate of 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% or 2%? Makes a big difference.
2. Needless to say, countries will high mortality rate obviously have a lot more cases than they are reporting. If mortality really is around 1% or less, then it appears there are already over 600,000 cases in Italy, over 250,000 cases in Spain, and maybe over 200,000 cases in Iran.
   1. Now it could be that the natural mortality rate in Italy will be higher than what we are seeing for S. Korea. This will be explored in a future post.
3. San Marino has a population of 33,562. With 187 cases, this makes it the “most infected” country in the world with 0.56% infected. San Marino also has a very high mortality rate at over 11%. They may well have almost 6% of the country infected.
   1. Italy with 60,317,546 people and 63,927 cases is third (0.11%)
      1. If they really have over 600,000 cases then we are looking at almost 1%.
   2. The Holy See (Vatican City) is second with 1 case in around 1,000 people (0.10%)
4. I still suspect 44 U.S. passengers from the Diamond Princess are being double counted in CSSE database. They are now listed as a subset of the Diamond Princess button, but I suspect they are still being counted in the U.S. totals.
   1. Also, Hong Kong’s 386 cases are also counted under China. I just choose to separate out Hong Kong because there is a political protest movement of some significance going on there.
5. Palestine was reported weeks ago to have 26 cases. Now the CSSE database does not report on Palestine. Not sure where those 26 cases went to. Are they reported under Israel?

There is now a single line on this graph, which represents the entire world. The “Total Recovered” is reported at 103,317 out of 395,647 cases (and 17,241 deaths).