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Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

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Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#31
post #2

How much can we trust the data coming out of China?

They might be 'massaging' the numbers, or maybe they aren't, but considering the importance of the issue for China and the world, and how many eyes are watching, their interest is still to report factual trends and overall situation. At this point they cannot afford to claim that everything is fine if it isn't. I'm more worried about Iran than China.

> their interest is still to report factual trends and overall situation

Unfortunately it isn't. They are trying to put people back to work and reopen trade because of the damage it is doing to their economy, and massaging the numbers is one crucial element of making that happen.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#32

Isn't the preexisting conditions table incredibly uninformative and heavily confounded by the fact that a lot of these conditions are far more prevalent in elderly people?

Possibly. Or possibly the reason the disease is more fatal for elderly — they are more likely to have these preexisting conditions.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#33
post #19
post #4

It's symptoms are pneumonia-like and it mainly kills the elderly. Is this is a new strain of pneumonia? If so, this seems like an overreaction? Edit: Not sure what the downvotes are about. I asked a question. So you can't fight it with drugs, it's highly contagious, hard to initially detect, its long-term effects are unknown, most have recovered and it's largely fatal to the elderly or those with existing conditions.

The mortality rate may seem very low, but the symptoms are far more severe. When you get the flu it's rare you get pneumonia, not so much with this virus. The biggest problem is that it spreads without symptoms. That is, you can be infected & contagious for days (some Dr's suspect up to 3 weeks) and not have a clue because you seem perfectly healthy. So this has the potential to spread like wild fire. Further, 2 days…

The mortality figure being shared in this thread is a baseline of 2 per mille. That's not what I'd call negligible.

And that's with proper healthcare, and functioning food/water/electric .. if 40% of is need hospitalisation and the rest daren't leave the house; how long until food supply chains are broken?

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#34

Isn't the preexisting conditions table incredibly uninformative and heavily confounded by the fact that a lot of these conditions are far more prevalent in elderly people?

I think it helps point out that there is probably an underreporting and selection bias in the cases of coronavirus that get reported, precisely because healthy patients with coronavirus probably won't go to the hospital, and if they do they just treat for a pneumonia without doing coronavirus testing (what's the indication to make the cost worthwhile?).

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#36
post #6
post #4

It's symptoms are pneumonia-like and it mainly kills the elderly. Is this is a new strain of pneumonia? If so, this seems like an overreaction? Edit: Not sure what the downvotes are about. I asked a question. So you can't fight it with drugs, it's highly contagious, hard to initially detect, its long-term effects are unknown, most have recovered and it's largely fatal to the elderly or those with existing conditions.

A 1% death rate in people without known complications (even 0.2% which seems pervasive in every age group) is orders of magnitude higher than for instance flu. And it spreads easily and is contagious before symptoms. Sounds like something you should be aware of.

Actually, multiple orders of magnitude...The Flu has a mortality rate of 2 per 100k [1].

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm

[edited - reformatted numbers to avoid localization issues]

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be 'massaging' the numbers, or maybe they aren't, but considering the importance of the issue for China and the world, and how many eyes are watching, their interest is still to report factual trends and overall situation. At this point they cannot afford to claim that everything is fine if it isn't. I'm more worried about Iran than China.

> their interest is still to report factual trends and overall situation Unfortunately it isn't. They are trying to put people back to work and reopen trade because of the damage it is doing to their economy, and massaging the numbers is one crucial element of making that happen.

This is FUD.

They are not in a vacuum. Business and travel will resume only if the situation is demonstrably resolved, or close to.

They cannot afford to fake it and re-open factories and lift quarantines just for mass contamination to occur, which would be very public and screw them internationally for good.

Edit: Everyone, from all impacted countries say that they are still open for business because they don't want everything to stop and people to be spooked. The country is not all under quarantine. That has nothing to do with faking numbers.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#39
post #35

People, if you haven’t yet go get the seasonal flu vaccine. Reduces burden on strained ops and your risk of getting double tapped

Isn't this something you can only get if you are in at risk group? I can't go to my doctor and just get a flu shot, I don't think?

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#40
This page only has death rates, not number of cases for each group, so it only tells half of the story. See Table 1 of the actual paper for complete stats (source of the stats on the linked page).

http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9...

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