The Spread of Coronavirus Has Leveled off More than A Week in China

[berni_mccoy]

In the last week, the increase in newly infected cases in China has only increased by 1.3% (about 1 thousand new cases in China).

Whether or not it remains that way is unknown. What this recent leveling off does provide is an indication of the case fatality rate (CFR).

For more information on how the CFR is measured, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate

To calculate this, it requires that everyone who has contracted the disease has had a resolution of recovery or death.

This disease exhibits a 3 week window. That is, on average, it takes 3 weeks for an individual case to resolve. If we look at currently resolved cases in China, at the time of this writing, we are at about 35,623 resolutions. On Feb 7, there were approximately the same number of infected in China.

With the recent leveling off, we can now estimate a consistent CFR. Total dead is at 2744 in China which is 7.7% of the resolved cases.

There still remain 42,874 cases of infection which have not resolved. However, approximately 41 thousand of these cases are more than a week old. That means within the next week, we could see as many as 3224 deaths in China with as many as 38,649 recoveries if the CFR holds.

The factors that could reduce the deaths are the incredible response China has put into the disease.
The factors that could negatively impact recoveries are that the disease can re-infect someone who has had it.

This is consistent with the SARS CFR rate which was 6% in China and 9% Globally.

The leveling off of the infections in China is a remarkable achievement given China is ground-zero. China is able to stop inter-province and inter-city travel more effectively than other countries and they were able to construct hospitals specifically for this disease in a matter of days. I do expect that the rest of the world will not be able to respond as well to this disease.

At this point, a vaccine is critical to prevent infections on the scale of millions.

[Blues Heron]

1. I think your forgetting about the cases that aren't on those lists

because they were mild. Not everyone got entered into the database if they did not seek medical attention.

[Jarqui]

2. It is too early to rely on any of the data too heavily

They have been changing how they determine if one has the virus or not.
They're encountering cases where people who survived the original virus are getting it back.
There have been claims some countries are suppressing numbers of infected while others are putting cause of death down as pneumonia rather than the virus.
etc
etc

All I can tell from what I've seen is this looks like it has the potential to be the worst pandemic in the last 100 years. So we better prepare for the worst.

[Chainfire]

3. Trusting China's statistics

I don't trust China's numbers any more than I trust Trump. Well, maybe a little.

[Hortensis]

4. :) Not even a little for me. Not even with a central government in "control."

So to speak. And COVI-19 has spread far beyond China. So too early to hope.