Corona reveals: mortality

Mortality among corona patients

Both influenza and covid-19 are dangerous to vulnerable groups such as newborns, pregnant women, patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma, and especially the elderly. China’s health agency investigated more than 70,000 cases of infection by the coronavirus. The average mortality rate is 2.3 percent. Among people over 80 years old, that rises to 14.8 percent, compared with 8 percent between 70 and 79, and 3.6 percent between 60 and 69.

Just to say that it rises significantly above, let’s say, 75. If you’re elderly, you would do well to strictly and meticulously apply the isolation measures that are by now sufficiently well known. I would have my groceries delivered contactlessly if I could afford it. It mainly concerns retirees who can afford to isolate themselves relatively for a while.

You can still go out on the street, but you’d better keep your distance from others. For the age group between 10 and 39 years, mortality is at 0.2 percent and for patients between 40 and 49 years at 0.4 percent. You may find this high or low, but for many it is still a relief to know that it’s not more, because all sorts of misconceptions are circulating about this.

Even more remarkable, most cases (80.9 percent) showed only mild symptoms. Barely 13.8 percent were severely ill and barely 4.2 percent were in danger of death. All of these figures are to be taken with a grain of salt, of course, because China in particular does not always take the truth very seriously, with all due respect, and even apart from that, these are always a posteriori studies anyway.

A large number of infected will probably always remain out of harm’s way. Many don’t turn to counseling when they are sick and they heal or they die out of sight of the cameras. We don’t know if all these percentage calculations hold true for them. The numbers are heavily influenced by how they are measured and counted and by the focus on those cases that end up in care.

We may assume that mainly the lighter cases that have few symptoms slip through the cracks, but if you compare it to a one in a thousand mortality rate for the flu, the coronavirus is still a lot more deadly.

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