And secondly, that more people have died than have recovered doesn't say much other than that it takes longer to recover than to die. If you are going to die, it would appear that it would happen sooner rather than later. Whereas if you aren't going to die, you may take awhile before you've been officially cured.
That isn't to say that is absolutely what is happening here. But both scenarios are fairly likely, and therefore should mediate some of the bleakness of those numbers for the time being.
There are reports of hospitals turning people away unless they a very sick, and also not testing every ill patient because they're overwhelmed.
I've see death certificates posted online with "viral pneumonia" because they aren't able to test everyone - and certainly don't bother testing those who have already died.
The errors are both ways and huge.
The only thing we can conclude is that it's contagious, deadly, and more deadly than the seasonal flu.
But yes it does indicate that the real number is much higher than the confirmed cases. It's really hard to track an outbreak of this magnitude especially when many people are carriers showing mild symptoms. It's actually a good thing if cases are being severely underestimated as it implies a lower death rate (deaths are harder to fudge).
Are you sure about this? AFAIK, the Chinese government does not disclose someone as dead by this virus unless they tested the person positive. That means that if someone dies from respiratory complications on the street or in their home, they will write it off as pneumonia. Right now Wuhan city only has the capacity to screen roughly 6000 samples everyday. Add to this that many sick people are basically just told to go home. Not many cars are driving, city is shutdown so god knows how many are sitting lifeless in their livingroom. I have also seen much evidence that communities are barring the doors of infected households so they can't leave their apartments.
The death count can only be expected considerably higher than reported.
Best wishes for your recovery!
Would that not be a proper reason for a corona virus caused death? Or does it have to be specific if the exact cause is known?
Either way, it makes the data far less useful.
If they don't know, fine. Albeit sloppy, given the context.
If they do know, and don't say, it's deceptive.
> Most patients were men, with a mean age of 55·5 years (SD 13·1; table 1). 50 (51%) patients had chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, endocrine system disease [and some others]
The findings conclude:
> In general, the characteristics of patients who died were in line with the early warning model for predicting mortality in viral pneumonia
Also the group was self-selecting of people who went to hospital before Jan 20th.
In summary: old men with pre-existing health conditions are going to have a rough ride. Am yet to see this play out in 2020 Presidential Election odds though.
I doubt that the 50 years old Hospital doctor who died had any serious per-existing health condition. In fact, you could argue hat most doctors have a stronger immune system than average since they are exposed to more germs due to their profession. So this 50y old professional dropping dead is a bad sign! (and hands off to him for his bravery in doing his job).
You could only argue that he cough the strain very early. A virus jumping into a new species is more aggressive at the beginning, later it adopts more to the new host and becomes less aggressive.
If you are referring to the doctor in Wuhan - Liang Wudong - he was 62-years old.
It isn't that bad. It means that this virus won't kill more than 50% of population even if we were to shut down all research right now.
>There is a high level of health seeking behaviour in Taiwan. It is part of the Taiwanese culture to take medicines or to seek medical help frequently, even for minor ailments.
>The average outpatient department visit rate is 14 times per year per person.
Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I've played plague inc.
It's just that neutrally observing that 50% of a population would die is at least off-putting.
Given your explanation, maybe you were mocking the credulous. Mocking doesn't work well on HN either.
I've looked at comment histories for many shadowbanned users, and I'm just echoing commentary.
Seems few believe the official numbers, people visit numerous hospitals without being able to seen, and even those that get seen have problems getting tested, and people who posts about the situation get the post pulled or pressured to pulled themselves.
Here's an article describing the censorship (pulled posts), arrests for "rumor mongering", difficulty in getting tested, etc:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-testing-insi...
This one documents 15% of 41 people getting hospitalized dying:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...