Coronavirus Mortality Rates update 12

Well, the coronavirus is now the lead story of every news service. There are a lot of real experts now on TV talking about this. Not sure how much longer I will continue these coronavirus updates. But, since my last post the number of cases is up dramatically, sadly so are the number of deaths, and of significance, so is the mortality rate. In countries that previously had low mortality rates, like Germany, they have now risen to above 1%.

China continues to report very few new cases. On 11 March they reported 80.9K cases. Twenty days later they are at 82.3K cases. So it is only growing by around 70 cases a day. The Wednesday before last it was 81,102, last Tuesday it was 81,588 now it is 82,276. This is 1,174 new reported cases in thirteen days or 90 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……803,650….39,033….…4.86%

United States….164,785……2,777+..….1.69%

Italy………..……101,739….11,591…….11.39%

Spain………..…..94,417……8,189….…..8.67%

China.……………82,276……3,290+.…….3.89%

Germany…….…..67,051….….682………1.02%

France……………45,209…..3,024……….6.69%

Iran…………….…44,605…..2,898……….6.50%

United Kingdom…22,465…..1,411…….…6.28%

Switzerland………16,176…….373………..2.31%

Belgium….………..12,775…….705…….….5.52%

Netherlands.……..12,662….1,039………..8.21%

Turkey…………….10,827……168……..…1.55%

Austria…………..…9,974…….128………..1.28%

S. Korea……….….9,786…….162………..1.65%

Canada………….…7,448……..84….……1.13%

Portugal.…..………..7,443……160…….….2.15%

Israel…….…………..4,831……..17…….…0.35%

Brazil………………..4,681…….167….……3.57%

Norway………….…4,599..…….36…….…0.78%

Australia……………4,559..…….12….……0.26%

Sweden…..…………4,435…….180……….0.83%

Czech Rep…………3,002………25…….…0.83%

Denmark..….………2,994………90………3.01%

Ireland………………2,910………54.………1.86%

Malaysia….…..……2,766…..….43…….…1.55%

Chile..……………….2,449……..…8….……0.33%

Russia…….…….…2,337….…..17……….0.73%

Romania……………2,245…..….72…….…3.21%

Poland………………2,215…..….32…..….1.44%

Philippines…….……2,084………88………4.22%

Luxembourg.……….1,988….…..22………1.11%

Ecuador.….…………1,966………62………2.87%

Japan………….……1,953…..….56.….…..2.87%

Pakistan……….……1,865….….25….…….1.34%

Thailand.…..………..1,651….….10.…….…0.61%

Saudi Arabia……..…1,563………10………0.64%

Indonesia….…………1,528…….136……….8.90%

Finland….……….…..1,418……..17………1.20%

South Africa….…..…1,326…….…3……….0.23%

India…………………..1,251………32.……….2.56%

Greece..….……….….1,212….….46…….…3.806%

Iceland…………..……1,135…….…2…….…0.18%

Mexico……………..…1,094……..28…….…2.56%

Panama……………….1,075….….27………2.51%

Forty-four countries around the world with over a thousand reported cases. Last week it was 26 countries, the week before that it was 16 countries. A few other entities of interest to this author that have less than a thousand cases so far:

Argentina…..……..……966……….25….……2.59%

Peru…..………………….950……….24….……2.53%

Singapore…..……..……926……..…3…….…0.32%

Dominican Rep..…….…901….……42….……4.66%

Slovenia……………….…802.………15………1.87%

Colombia…………….….798.………14……….1.75%

Serbia…………………….785.………16…….…2.04%

Hong Kong….……………714……..…4….……0.56%

Egypt…………..…………656……….41……….6.25%

New Zealand…………….647……..…1…….…0.15%

Iraq…..……………….…..630..……..46…..……7.30%

Algeria………..…..………584………35………..5.99%

Morocco………..………..574………33………..5.75%

Bahrain……….….………567……..…4………..0.71%

Ukraine…………………..549……….13……..…2.37%

Hungary………………….492.………16…….….3.25%

Lebanon……..………..…463..……..12…..…….2.59%

Bosnia………………..….411.……….12…….….2.92%

Andorra………………….370.…….…..8….…….2.16%

Tunisia……………….…..362.………10….…….2.76%

Taiwan………………..…322…………5………..1.55%

Burkina Faso……………246.…..…..12…….….4.88%

Albania……………….….243.……….13…….….5.35%

San Marino…………..…230………..25……….10.87%

Vietnam….…………..…207……….…0…….….0%

Afghanistan…………..…174….……..4…….….2.30%

Palestine…..…………….117…………1….…….0.95%

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 10:01.43 AM EST. The data page is no longer showing count of less then 3 deaths in their tabulation, but shows it on their map. It makes it harder to count all the deaths in the United States as they are reported by country. The United States now has over 3,000 deaths. It is here: Johns Hopkins CSSE

A few more observations:

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 rate continues to grow to now 1.65%. I gather they have tested more than 300,000 people.
  2. The Diamond Princess deaths are at 11, for a 1.54% mortality rate. Is the mortality rate for an older population hovering around 2%?
2. There are now few European countries that are reporting a rate of less than 1%. In most cases, it would appear that the mortality rate is going to increase over time. This has happened with German, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Ireland. Last week they were all around 0.50%, now they are all over 1%.
  1. Germany is at 1.02%. Switzerland is at 2.31%, Austria is at 1.28%, Norway is at 0.78% and Ireland is at 1.86%.
  2. It appears that these numbers will continue to go up as more data comes in and unfortunately, more people become seriously ill.
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.
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 a million cases in Italy and over a half-million cases in Spain.
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.
San Marino has a population of 33,562. With 230 cases, this makes it the “most infected” country in the world with 0.69% infected. San Marino also has a very high mortality rate at around 11%. They may well have over 7% of the country infected.
1. The Holy See (Vatican City) is second with 6 cases in around 1,000 people (0.60%)
2. Andorra with a population of 76,177 and 370 cases I gather is now third at 0.48%. Is Andorra a snapshot of the future of Spain like San Marino looks like a snapshot of the future of Italy?
3. Italy with 60,317,546 people and 101,739 cases is fourth (0.17%), maybe (I haven’t checked every country).
  1. If they really have over a million cases then we are looking at almost 2% infected.
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 714 cases are also counted under China. I just choose to separate out Hong Kong because there is/was a political protest movement of some significance going on there.

There is now a single line on this graph, which represents the entire world. The “Total Recovered” is reported at 172,869 out of 809,608 cases and 39,545 deaths (as of 11.11.10 AM).