Study: COVID-19 Fatality Rate Drops by 30% Since April
It went down to 0.6% from 0.9%.
The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) announced that COVID-19’s fatality rate dropped 30% since April.
But yet we need to cancel Thanksgiving and Christmas.
From Reuters:
In the United States, COVID-19 now kills about 0.6% of people infected with the virus, compared with around 0.9% early in the pandemic, IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray told Reuters.
He said statistics reflect that doctors have figured out better ways to care for patients, including the use of blood thinners and oxygen support. Effective treatments, such as the generic steroid dexamethasone, have also been identified.
Experts have struggled to accurately measure a crucial metric in the pandemic: the fatality rate, or percentage of people infected with the pathogen who are likely to die. The difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that many people who become infected do not experience symptoms and are never identified.
Is anyone shocked that the main risk is age? Me either, considering viruses seem to hit older people the hardest:
IHME said it had been using an infection-fatality rate (IFR) derived from surveys after accounting for age. Older people are at much higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than younger people.
“We know the risk is profoundly age-related. For every one year of age, the risk of death increases by 9%,” Murray said.
Obesity is another big risk.
We’re seeing a spike in infections and hospitalizations. But these numbers will never grab the headlines because it’s not sexy and goes against the narrative the left wants to impose on us.
The fear-mongering will not end, especially if Joe Biden takes the White House.
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This means that more lockdowns and mask mandates will make the drop 60%. Right?
Mary Chastain: COVID-19 Fatality Rate Drops by 30% Since April… It went down to 0.6% from 0.9%.
At that rate, if a hundred million people in the U.S. become infected, that will result in 600,000 dead. If a billion people world-wide become infected, that will result in 6 million dead. That doesn’t include those who experience severe cases but survive, including many who may have long-term effects.
This would be correct, if we knew the infection and actual death rate from COVID-19. At the moment, we have NO firm idea what the infection rate is. To obtain that, we would have to accurately test 100% of the population. Otherwise all we have is an estimate. As to the death rate from COVID, we do not know that either. We have already seen many cases of people dying from such causes as trauma which are being classified as COVID related deaths based upon a positive test to exposure to COVID. Until we actually audit all of the deaths classified as being COVID related, we do not have an accurate count of which are actually COVID related.
Mac45: At the moment, we have NO firm idea what the infection rate is. To obtain that, we would have to accurately test 100% of the population.
A reasonable estimate can be made by sampling. However, current testing still has wide error bars.
Mac45: As to the death rate from COVID, we do not know that either.
We have good estimates of deaths, not only from the direct count, but from excess mortality figures.
Excess mortality??? Please. This is nothing but a smoke and mirrors argument. In the case of cause of death, we actually are supposed to establish the exact, or at the least the most probable, cause of death. So, why do we have to rely upon an excess morality rate to determine cause of death? What the excess death rate means is that the accuracy of the official cause of death is horrible flawed. And, it fails to take into account other causes of death, not directly related to COVID. Such things as suicide, overdose [accidental and deliberate], increased accidents, reluctance to get treatment for other physical ailments, etc. We are already seeing actual statistical evidence that the death rate in these areas is up. In some cases significantly.
Sorry, Zach, but the evidence is mounting, exponentially, that both the number of “infections” and deaths is extremely inaccurate.
Mac45: Excess mortality???
That’s right. In large populations, overall mortality can be predicted within narrow margins (adjusting for demographics and season). COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S.
Mac45: So, why do we have to rely upon an excess morality rate to determine cause of death?
We don’t. We rely on standard medical methods, such as symptoms and testing. However, excess deaths is an independent measure, which lends confidence to the count made by standard medical methods.
Mac45: Such things as suicide, overdose [accidental and deliberate], increased accidents, reluctance to get treatment for other physical ailments, etc.
Epidemiologists are quite aware of various causes of deaths. However, suicides and so on do not explain the large number of excess deaths.
Nearly 1/2 of excess deaths can be attributed to Planned Parent. Of the remaining, 80 to 90% can be attributed to denying and stigmatizing early treatments. Over all, there is a lack of knowledge of what cases are past, probably, possible, and present, let alone deaths that are caused by the virus or recorded in its presence. A singular driver of excess deaths is the spread of social contagion. Also, restrictive mandates. Most populations reached peak exponential spread before the mandates were enforced. The masks, in particular, are not advised for general use, and are collectors/concentrators of viruses and bacteria (veritable petri dishes).
COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S.
The first elective cause of excess deaths is reproductive rites a.k.a. planned parenthood.
n.n: Nearly 1/2 of excess deaths can be attributed to Planned Parent.
Uh, no. Abortions are not included in death counts, but even if they were, it would not change the number of excess deaths, which refers to those deaths above and beyond what would otherwise be expected.
Yet, here we are blaming Trump and ignoring the source.
“It went down to 0.6% from 0.9%.”
‘It’ is known by the lab coats as ‘Infection Fatality Rate (IFR).’ The IFR for regular seasonal flu is 0.1% – one-third HIGHER than COVID19’s new IFR. And regular flu kills all across the age spectrum to the tune of 30-60 thousand Americans EVERY YEAR.
So, riddle me this, Joker: Why don’t we annually lock down for regular flu season? Why?
Answer: It’s not about a virus. It’s about POWER & CONTROL. The previous 8 months saw lock-downs n mask mandates across the globe, yet the ‘cases’ kept going up n up n up… because lock downs and masks DON’T WORK. Just ask New Zealand or Hawaii, two of the most socially distanced locales on the planet.
It’s not about a virus. It’s about POWER & CONTROL.
locomotivebreath1901: The IFR for regular seasonal flu is 0.1% – one-third HIGHER than COVID19’s new IFR.
You have your decimals in the wrong place. COVID-19 is about six times more deadly than seasonal influenza, and was ten times more deadly before new treatments were devised.
locomotivebreath1901: And regular flu kills all across the age spectrum to the tune of 30-60 thousand Americans EVERY YEAR.
Yes, but most people who die of seasonal influenza are older or have co-morbidities. COVID-19 has already caused 4-8 times the number of deaths typical for seasonal influenza, and infections are growing exponentially in the U.S.
locomotivebreath1901: Why don’t we annually lock down for regular flu season? Why?
Because the seasonal flu is not nearly as dangerous, and there is an available vaccine which can reduce the prevalence of the disease if enough people take it.
Good grief. The way you play with words and numbers. Get real.
Up to now, we’ve allowed the MEDICAL scientists to handle these things and these professionals were very conscientious with data and were very successful protecting us. Suddenly the SOCIAL “scientists” push the medical people aside and the numbers lose all meaning as everything becomes subordinated to the social justice narrative whose goal is to destroy the economy. I’m sorry, you commies prefer the term “reset”.
Pasadena Phil: The way you play with words and numbers. Get real.
We referenced numbers in the original post. Did you have a substantive reply?
Pasadena Phil: Suddenly the SOCIAL “scientists” push the medical people aside and the numbers lose all meaning
The Director of IHME is a medical doctor, and epidemiology is a well-established field of medical science.
You: “At that rate, if a hundred million people in the U.S. become infected, that will result in 600,000 dead.”
Me: What if 340 million get infected, that means 2.04 million will die. But so far, only about 250,000 have been infected, it means 750 less people dead. Do you think the difference in scale matters?
As to your replies to locomotivebreath, before the Wuhan Flu era, the numbers were not distorted with incentives for hospitals to sweep every death into the flu numbers and the MEDICAL scientists cared about isolating the true deaths from the flu. Your phony social scientist doctors are not even isolating the influenza numbers from the Wuhan numbers. And that doesn’t even take into account people who died in motorcycle accidents or supposedly died of asphyxiation from a cop’s knee on their neck. The numbers you are citing are garbage,
Pasadena Phil: But so far, only about 250,000 have been infected, it means 750 less people dead.
Um, a quarter million have *died* already, just in the U.S.
https://videos.whatfinger.com/2020/09/06/weve-been-bamboozled/?utm_source=whatfinger
QED
Pasadena Phil: QED
From the linked article:
“The C.D.C. recently announced on its website that only 6% of those who had reportedly died from the Wuhan coronavirus had been previously healthy.”
That is false. What the CDC said was “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned.” If someone has a heart attack during a COVID-19 coughing spell, then the death certificate will probably list heart attack as well as COVID-19. Furthermore, health is relative. Someone who is obese is not necessarily healthy and are consequently more susceptible to severe effects from COVID-19. That doesn’t mean they weren’t killed by COVID-19. Excess mortality, which is included in the underlying CDC data, shows that the COVID-19 death count is probably somewhat of an undercount.
“You have your decimals in the wrong place.”
No, I don’t. You’ve confused ‘infection fatality rate’ with ‘case fatality rate.’ Thanks for playing.
“In the United States, COVID-19 now kills about 0.6% of people infected with the virus, compared with around 0.9% early in the pandemic, IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray told Reuters.”
locomotivebreath1901: You’ve confused ‘infection fatality rate’ with ‘case fatality rate.’
The study found the infection fatality rate of COVID-19 dropped from 0.9% to 0.6%. The infection fatality rate of seasonal influenza is about 0.1%. That makes COVID-19 six times more deadly than seasonal influenza, a result which is consistent with the high number of deaths from COVID-19. This does not include those who suffer serious illnesses, but survive, including those who have significant long-term effects.
We are getting much better at treating this virus, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, it DOES hit a small percentage of patients very, very hard-including younger people with no known risk factors. Are the raw numbers all that bad? Absolutely not; this is not an existential threat and Covid isn’t Ebola. What I think the virus IS doing is exposing the weakness of our health care system. That small number of very ill people is enough to completely overwhelm hospital capacity in areas that are less densely populated (think the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho.) Our health care system is a mess. I wish that we were thinking intelligently about what to do to improve it.
The fact that the death rate is higher for older people is old, old news. Nobody has been hiding that from us. It has been discussed almost since week 1. But it seems that the case fatality rates seem to have been going down for all age groups. That’s good, but data on that are hard to find.
If you play with the Coronavirus Data Explorer at ourworldindata.org, you can see that the case fatality rate for the entire world has been converging to the place where the U.S. is now. Some individual countries have a rate higher than ours and some lower. India and Poland are two examples with lower rates that I found just now.
However, we don’t want what Poland has right now, or even most of the EU. The EU had a lower rate of deaths per million per day than ours for a long time, but it shot higher than ours in late October, and is only now leveling off at a high level that we don’t want. Deaths per million per day is a rate that should be used to determine whether our hair should be on fire and restrictions imposed, etc. The U.S. rate is better than the EU’s, but has been going up gradually of late, and there is nothing to say we can’t end up where the EU is, or worse.
I should have specified, deaths per million population per day. In trying to economize on words I neglected to say population, which could lead a person to wonder, a million what?
If you watch the left starting Nov 4 it’s over. The mask comes off or they only have them on when on camera.
And as I review reports of the vaccine details, for most of the infected who experience mild or no symptoms or those not infected at all, the side effects of the vaccine are so much worse than the virus itself. It’s a “missing work for 1-3 days” event. What is the expected death rate for those getting vaccinated vs those of us who refuse?
Pasadena Phil: What is the expected death rate for those getting vaccinated vs those of us who refuse?
So far, the Pfizer vaccine has caused no serious complications. All vaccines can cause minor side-effects, especially due to the adjuvants that are often included with the vaccine to stimulate the immune response.
About a quarter million Americans have died from COVID-19. You take the vaccine to protect not just yourself but to protect your family and your community.
Sorry, Zach, but this has proven to be a false assumption.
In order for vaccinating an individual against a contagious pathogen to protect non-immune individuals, you would have to achieve effective immunity in the entire population. This is impossible. No vaccine is 100% effective. All have a failure rate. So, the herd immunity can never be achieved. And, then there is the indirect infection vectors. Viral pathogens do not simply disappear. So, while person A may not be infected, he may carry the virus on his clothing, body or other surfaces and this might be passed on to a non-immune person, who will contract the virus.
But, the most important role of a vaccine is to provide immunity to the person vaccinated. Once vaccinated, a person is assumed to be immune to contracting the disease. If person A chooses to receive the vaccine, then he is assumed to be immune to the disease. So, it does not matter, to him, if anyone else in the society is vaccinated or not. Therefor, the most logical route to take would be to strongly advise people in the high risk population to be vaccinated. Those outside the high risk population can then make an informed decision as to whether they should be vaccinated.
Mac45: In order for vaccinating an individual against a contagious pathogen to protect non-immune individuals, you would have to achieve effective immunity in the entire population.
That is incorrect. If you are immunized, then you are much less likely to transmit the disease to your family, friends, or associates. Each person that gets immunized reduces the reproduction number of the disease, reducing the spread of the disease. Perfect immunity is not required for the disease to stop its general spread. It only requires reducing the reproduction number to below one.
COVID-19 is highly transmissible, so herd immunity is believed to occur once 50-70% of the population is immune. If you are immunized, those around you are less likely to be infected because you have reduced the reproduction number in your local group.
Read what I wrote. While vaccinating large numbers of people “may” reduce transmission of a disease, it will only stop if there is 100% immunity established. And, given the fact that vaccine induced immunity has a failure rate, sometimes as high as 50-60%, such immunity levels will never be achieved. Look what happened with measles, just a couple of years ago. With a 92-95% vaccination rate, in the US, we still had cases of measles. Some of those were in people who had been vaccinated twice.
But, back to the purpose of vaccination. Vaccines were developed, not to protect the herd, but to protect the individual. Vaccines were administered, for decades, to people who were going overseas or into areas where specific diseases, for which vaccines had been developed, were prevalent. Soldiers, sailors, missionaries and common travelers were vaccinated so that they would not contract the disease. In many cases, even though vaccinated, some of these travelers were still required to be quarantined prior to reentry into their home society. The point of vaccination, historically, was never to immunize the entire society. But, a doctor put forth the theory of herd immunity, in the 1920s. The theory was that there is an immunity threshold built into human society. And, that once that threshold is reached, immunity will magically be imparted to the non-vaccinated portion of society. Sounds wonderful. But, not only is it illogical, it has proven to be false. Even with a 90% vaccination rate, it still does not eliminate cases of a specific disease, in that society.
Mac45: While vaccinating large numbers of people “may” reduce transmission of a disease, it will only stop if there is 100% immunity established.
That is incorrect. Herd immunity for COVID-19 is reached at about 50-70%. (The percentage varies depending on transmissibility of the contagion.) At that point, the disease will generally die out as the reproductive number will drop below one.
Mac45: With a 92-95% vaccination rate, in the US, we still had cases of measles.
That’s because measles is even more transmissible than COVID-19. Measles requires almost perfect immunity to stop. However, if your point is that there will be some cases even with herd immunity, then you are largely correct. That’s because herd immunity is never universal, and many diseases have non-human reservoirs. Measles outbreaks in the U.S. are tied to a reduction in immunizations, by the way.
Mac45: Vaccines were developed, not to protect the herd, but to protect the individual.
Vaccines protect the individual and the community. If everyone around you is vaccinated, then, even if you are not vaccinated, you are much less likely to become infected. This is important for people who can’t take a vaccine, such as infants and people with compromised immune systems.
All vaccines can cause minor side-effects
Vaccines are not advised for general distribution because they can cause minor, long-term side-effects and death. Vaccines are one option in a risk management protocol.
n.n: Vaccines are not advised for general distribution because they can cause minor, long-term side-effects and death.
Well, that’s false. Many vaccines are advised by the medical community for general distribution, including vaccines for measles and influenza.
Given that current hospitalizations are approching, but still less than they were in April, the total number of infections back then were likely at least what they are now if not higher. But now we have better testing and contact tracing. I lost my sense of smell for a week after a cold, back in February. Easily could have been Covid. I’m still not taking any chances.
Mr85: Given that current hospitalizations are approching, but still less than they were in April, …
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 are now at an all-time high.
https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-currently-hospitalized
Probably attributable to the side-effects of restrictive mandates. Most populations in America reached peak exponential spread, hospitalization, deaths before the mandates were enforced.
n.n: America reached peak exponential spread, hospitalization, deaths before the mandates were enforced.
Well, that’s clearly false as infections are growing exponentially, and hospitalizations are at record highs in the U.S.
Likewise. The Bride and I had the gastrointestinal difficulties, me more than her, and loss of smell and taste around the end of February but I was tested negative for antibodies a couple of months later.
However, I remember enough about germ theory from sixth grade health class to know I’ll be in line for Wuhan Flu vaccine as soon as it’s proven safe as well as effective. That’s also why I get the flu vaccine every October. Momma didn’t raise no fool.
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If it’s appropriate and valid to determine public policy based on presumptions based on statistical sampling, permitting restrictions on fundamental Constitutional Rights, it’s surely appropriate and valid to use presumptions based on statistical sampling to determine whether there was election fraud in the recent election.
If the Government doesn’t need actual, verifiable, specific evidence to mandate closing Houses of Worship, social gatherings, and businesses, surely the Government doesn’t need actual, verifiable, specific evidence to remedy election fraud.
“If Joe Biden takes the White House”.
“If”.
???