I’d like to highlight a huge revision from the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavir…/…/hcp/planning-scenarios.html) to the USA case fatality ratio for COVID 19 to current estimate of 0.4% overall for symptomatic cases. Not 3.4% which was the WHO’s value from China and what we started the pandemic with. But that number hides just how significantly it changes with age. The value for people under 50 is 0.05 percent, and when you take into account that CDC estimates that 35 percent of cases are asymptomatic, you get a infection fatality rate of 0.0325% for people under 50, and if you factor in the effects of pre-existing conditions and the likelihood that younger people have a higher asymptomatic rate than older people, it’s probably less. If you are under 50 without any COVID preexisting conditions, you’re chance of dying isn’t one in a million but it is getting surprisingly close – heck, if you’re under 25 it may actually be better.
But let’s compare that to the flu, and we will leave it at the 0.03%. Looking up values for last seasons flu numbers which CDC estimates led to 60,000 deaths in the US (and let me say it’s a very loose estimate- all values from: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm) for the 18-49 year age bracket we have estimates of 2,803 deaths from 14,428,065 illnesses or 0.02% death rate for that age group, which is 50% higher but sure looks pretty similar especially as they are both estimates. So for the under 50 crowd COVID19 looks like a bad flu. And does anyone remember any lament in the spring of 2018 that the flu season that year had killed more Americans than the Vietnam war?
For the over 65 crowd, you have a 0.86% for the flu in 2017-2018, the number is 1.3% for symptomatic which I’m not going to adjust because at that age I’m not sure how many cases are asymptomatic which again leads to about a 50% higher death rate but at those values doesn’t look too similar. And since the over 65 crowd is estimated to have suffered 51,000 deaths out of the estimated 61,000 that season, you can see how the seniors not only drive the flu numbers but drive the COVID numbers even more.
Did you know that if you are under 50 your chance of dying from an accident as you go about your daily life is higher than of dying from COVID if you catch it?
If you’re really feeling cheery, dive into the Deaths and Mortality (2017 is the latest) statistics with me (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm) where you can see that at 100,000 deaths COVID has passed up flu/pneumonia (55,700 deaths) and diabetes (83,500) – although since diabetes is considered one of those death enhancing preconditions for COVID, which one gets credit if someone dies with both diabetes and COVID – and is closing in on Alzheimers (121,400). Then comes stroke (146,300), chronic lower respiratory disease (160,200 – and same question as diabetes), accidents (169,900) and then the two biggies – cancer (599,100) and heart disease (647,500). I’m hoping COVID doesn’t make it past Alzheimers. When you add it all up, the average death rate for all causes for all Americans in 2018 was 0.87%.
So while on the one hand it’s kind of amazing that COVID can come out of nowhere and become the seventh leading cause of death in roughly 3 months, on the other hand all those others kill people year in and year out without much fanfare from the media or concern on our part.
