Substantial undocumented infection facilitates rapid dissemination of SARS-CoV2

Re:Substantial undocumented infection facilitates rapid diss... by rbritton on Saturday March 21, 2020 @02:34PM (#22648713)

Influenza R0 has varied historically between 0.9 and 2.8 [0], where covid-19 is typically quoted as having an R0 around 2.3-2.5. It’s not substantially different in that regard.

Lethality estimates also suffer from being based on bad data. “Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes.” [1]. For that reason, the CFR in the US at least has been around 1%, but the IFR could actually be significantly lower.

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19545404/ [1]: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-a...

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Re:Substantial undocumented infection facilitates rapid diss... by feral on Saturday March 21, 2020 @03:38PM (#22649283)

Otoh, the epidemic in the US is likely growing exponentially, and that encourages the current CFR to underestimate the actual CFR as new cases haven't had time to die.

In terms of estimating the IFR, it's hard; estimates are about 0.7, much higher than flu.

Your link says 'mean R0 1.3: range 0.9 to 2.1'.

Compared to the mean R0 of flu, this disease spreads substantially more and is more lethal, hence is a good counterpoint to the flawed argument of the post that I was replying to.

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