12.56% Mortality Rate of Covid-19
Many people ask me what I think of coronavirus. Do I think it’s a hoax, or do I think it was created in a lab, do I think it is safe to go outside, etc.
I wrote a blog about this before called Letter to Virus Deniers .
Basically I don’t think death statistics are faked. People are dying. Hospitals are running out of ICU beds and ventilators. I don’t think that is faked. I agree that you cannot trust the media. But you can trust some sources for hard statistics and if you know how to read them the story they tell is scary.
Excess Deaths
The number of deaths that are declared due to coronavirus is inaccurate for many reasons. A much better method is by analyzing the “Excess Deaths” tallies. There are many websites that will go into exactly what that is in great detail and I have listed them below. The short definition is:
Excess Deaths are how many deaths happen in a time period which is in excess of what has happened in prior years during the same time period.
The World Health Organization define ‘excess mortality’ as:
“Mortality above what would be expected based on the non-crisis mortality rate in the population of interest. Excess mortality is thus mortality that is attributable to the crisis conditions. It can be expressed as a rate (the difference between observed and non-crisis mortality rates), or as a total number of excess deaths.”
For example, if every year 2,000 people normally die in April but in 2020 there were 5,000 people that died in April, then we would say there were 3,000 excess deaths. If the hospitals declare only 1,000 people died of coronavirus during April but there were 3,000 excess deaths… then what killed all the others? Because some people are dying in their homes and some are dying of “complications” they are not labeled as coronavirus deaths but in actuality they were probably due to coronavirus.
During lockdown people are driving much less than normal. This is actually reducing the number of car accident deaths. So to get true “excess deaths” we would have to find out how many deaths by car accident are normal during a time period and compare it to how many happened this year. Using the above example if 300 of the 2000 normal deaths in April are due to car accidents and in 2020 the car accident deaths drop to 100, then really the excess deaths should be calculated as 3,200 (calculated from (5,000 - 100) - (2,000 - 300)) since that is how many more died than usual not including car accidents. That is only one example of why the excess deaths should be going down instead of up so when we look at Excess Deaths as a factor for determining true fatality of covid-19 we really should be rounding up.
Basic Math
Between March 1st and May 9th the USA recorded 75,600 covid-19 deaths. However for that same period there were 101,600 excess deaths which is 26,000 more. Assuming all were covid-19 (which on average is a valid assumption), that means the deaths were under-reported by 34.4% (75600 x 134.4% = 101600).
During that same time period there were 1,309,090 new cases of covid-19 in the USA. That would be a 7.76% mortality rate but is not really a valid method because those infected have not recovered and may still die in the following month.
Recovered versus Died - the Real Formula
As of July 3rd, 2020 there are 1,235,488 people that recovered from covid-19. There are 132,101 people who died of it. Everyone else that has been infected has neither recovered nor died so cannot be counted in determining the mortality rate.
(132101 / (132101 + 1235488)) = 9.66% mortality rate
However if we factor in that the 132,101 deaths are actually 34.4% under-reported based on above Excess Death logic, then our new math becomes:
132101 * 1.344 = 177543
(177543 / (177543 + 1235488)) = (177543 / 1413031) = 12.56% = one in eight people die
Yes, based on Recovery statistics it shows 12.56% of people that catch coronavirus die.
Today’s Statistics in America
Based on today’s numbers we can see:
2,890,588 people are currently infected
12.56% of those will die.
363,057 projected deaths of the currently infected
For the last 4 days the numbers are rising in infections from Virus Tracker.
46,552 June 30th
50,111 July 1st
54,437 July 2nd
55,756 July 3rd (and day is not over yet)
For the last 4 days over 3217 people have died of coronavirus for an average of 804 per day. That does not include excess deaths adjustment which would make the deaths 1080 daily.
Simulation and Math Resources
Both these videos do an excellent job of showing the math in a graphical representation with various variables taken into consideration and how a slight adjustment can have profound effects.
How Exponential growth and epidemics work
Summary
Do not believe the media when they say the mortality rate is 2%. They obviously cannot do math nor understand that until we have verified percentages of "how many recovered" and "how many died from coronavirus" we cannot possibly have an accurate mortality rate. The 12.56% mortality rate is definitely going to be closer than the 2 or 3% that news rooms are promoting for whatever agenda they might have.
After reading all this to prevent depression check out my other blog:
Ways to have fun during Pandemic
Resources
Pandemic’s overall death toll in U.S. likely surpassed 100,000 weeks ago
Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries
Excess U.S. deaths hit estimated 37,100 in pandemic’s early days, far more than previously known
Excess mortality from the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19)
120,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Outbreak
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Mortality Rate
USA coronavirus outbreak tracker
For more information and links on coronavirus :
http://akronosmago.com/Covid19.php