March 19, 2020

expert reaction to new paper looking at overall fatality risk of COVID-19 in Wuhan

A paper, published in Nature Medicine, reports on the overall fatality risk of COVID-19 in Wuhan.

Prof Robin May, Professor of Infectious Disease, University of Birmingham, said:

“This is a detailed epidemiological analysis and the results are cautiously encouraging, in that they indicate a lower fatality rate from COVID-19 than has thus far been estimated.  Using patient data from the original epicentre of the outbreak, Wuhan, they show an overall death rate of around 1.4% of symptomatic cases, which is lower than previous estimates.  They also show that mortality rates appear to be very low for people under 50 (around 0.3-0.5%) which is, again, promising.

“One important caveat, though, is that this study is based primarily on data from Wuhan and therefore does not necessarily reflect mortality rates that may be seen in other areas of the world.  As with all epidemiological models, it also relies on various assumptions which – since we still know relatively little about the course of this infection in human populations – may not be entirely accurate.  That said, however, this is a very important new piece of data that will help guide the public health response to this pandemic.”

* https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0822-7

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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