The True Fatality Rate of Covid-19 is not the same as the Flu.
Please see an update at the end of the article. There are better metrics to grasp the health toll of Covid-19 than comparing fatality rate jargons.
The director of the NIAID said at the congressional hearing that the flu has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent. The mortality rate is 10 times that. We have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the mortality rate of the novel coronaviruses is ten times higher than the seasonal flu.
According to Dr. Fauci, Covid-19 has a mortality rate of 1%, which he said had fallen from 2–3 after taking into account symptomless infections. 1% is 10 x 0.1%.
In an editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Fauci stated that there is an increase in the number of flu cases. What did Dr. Fauci mean by mortality rate?
He should have said the death rate from infections. What is the reason? The flu has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent according to Dr. Fauci.
There is confusion between case andinfection fatality rates. The total number of deaths divided by the number of people with the disease’s symptoms is called the CFR. The total number of deaths divided by the number of people that carry the infection is called the IFR.
Is it right? The World Health Organization stated that the flu has an IFR of less than 1%.
The directors of the NIAID and CDC said that the flu has a CFR of 0.1%. The WHO said that the flu has an IFR of less than 0.1%.
The proportion of deaths among confirmed cases of the disease is known as a case fatality rate. In an article published in August in the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, Dr. Ronald B. Brown shed light on the confusion caused by biases in coronaviruses mortality overestimation.
The CFR is the total number of deaths divided by the number of people with the disease symptoms. The total number of deaths divided by the total number of people that carry the infection is called the IFR. Cases only refer to those with clinical symptoms of the disease. Symptomless people are not considered as a case.
The total number of deaths per 100,000 people is the definition of the mortality rate. When talking about mortality rate, people usually refer to the CFR or IFR. CFRs are based on relatively small groups of moderately to severely ill cases at the beginning of an outbreak, and are often lower compared to IFRs from samples across the population.
The mortality rate of Covid-19 has fallen from 2% to 1% after taking into account the infections that are not life threatening. According to Dr. Brown, the WHO got it right and that the IFR of the flu is less than 0.1%.
Covid-19 has a true fatality rate. Dr. Fauci might have meant to say that Covid-19 has an IFR of 1% after having considered infections.
Covid-19 is not any deadlier than the flu among those who became sick. It was thought that the Covid-19 is just like the seasonal flu, so there was no need for a lock down. The Covid-19 mortality rate dropped from 3% to 1% after adjusting for infections. The coronaviruses mortality rate of 2% that was adjusted to 1% in Congressional testimony is in line with the CDC’s estimate of 2%.
As follows, The WHO reported that the CFR of the H1N1 influenza virus is 2– 3%, similar to the unadjusted 2– 3% CFR of the coronaviruses reported in Congressional testimony. Evidence from the WHO confirmed that the CFR of the coronaviruses is not higher than that of seasonal flu.
The CFR is 2–3 and the IFR is less than that. Please see the update below about this. The CFR is 2–3 and the IFR is 1%. According to the CDC and WHO, Covid-19 has an IFR of 0.65% and 0.5-1%.
A higher transmission rate leads to more infections and more deaths. CFR alone is not as important as it used to be. Covid-19 is not any deadlier than the flu among those who became sick. It was thought that the Covid-19 is just like the seasonal flu, so there was no need for a lock down.
This means that a person is more likely to become sick with the flu than with the SARS-CoV-2 strain. A lot more people will get sick because of the novel virus in which little immunity exists. Dr. Fauci and others were confused about the differences between CFR and IFR. Covid-19 is 6.5 times deadlier than the flu.
Even if the IFRs of the two diseases are the same, the basic reproductive number of 2.5 is more likely to be picked up by others. 2000+ infections are possible after ten rounds of transmissions if a person has the virus. The flu has an R-naught of 1.3, which equates to 56 infections after ten rounds. Covid-19 has a true health burden.
The number of deaths that exceed what is seen in typical years is quickly apparent by the fact that Covid-19 kills more than flu. The period between infection and symptom onset is longer for SARS-CoV-2 than for influenza. 5 days vs. 2 days. This means that people who are not infectious can stay infectious for a longer time.
Nature reported in September that the number of deaths that exceed what is seen in typical years is due to the fact that Covid-19 kills more than flu. Covid-19 deaths are not deaths that would happen anyway. A higher transmission rate leads to more infections and more deaths. CFR alone is not as important as it used to be. Not to mention the fact that the infections are more likely to become cases than with the flu.
In 2020 there will be more information on excess mortality. Nature.
CFR update/corrections on September 14, 2020. Ourworldindata.org is the source. There are similar data on other countries here.
The seasonal flu has a CFR of 0.1%, but Dr. Fauci compared it to the IFR of Covid-19, which was 1%. The mortality rate of Covid-19 is ten times higher than the flu, according to Dr. Fauci. I apologize for the overstated lethality of the flu and the discredited Dr. Fauci.
The specific source of the IFR and CFR of the flu was asked for in an email. The IFR of the seasonal flu was cited by Dr. Brown. The CFR is less than 1% for the seasonal flu.
The IFR values of Covid-19 have been changed by the CDC into age-specific estimates, which are very low at 5.4% for 70+ years. IFR updates/corrections on 8 October 2020.
There is no data on age specific IFR of the seasonal flu. The number of reported deaths divided by the number of infections will be lower, according to the WHO. The mortality for seasonal flu is usually below 1%. It’s not clear how much below 0.1% is. It may be impossible to compare mortality rates between Covid-19 and the seasonal flu. R-naught and excess deaths are some metrics that could be looked at.
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