Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by hutzlibu » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

eecc wrote: 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

But please inform yourself before.

In my area in germany for example, the flu is already peaking, so it would be actually harmful to get the vaccine now, as the protection time is around 2 weeks later(I think) and the vaccine temporarily lowers your immune system. Which means, getting the vaccine now means actually a higher risk of getting the real flu (or something else).

Vaccines should be taken ahead of the season.

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

#62

Post by halest » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

adeptus wrote: post #19

tarkin2 wrote: 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…

> Further, 2 days ago some numbers out of China stated that up to 14% of previously infected became infected again.

Fake news

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

#63

Post by JulianMorrison » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

sciinfo wrote: post #52

There seems to be many cases of young patients dying in Iran. Either because there are way more cases than being officially reported or (hopefully not) the virus has mutated to affect the young more, or both. The first hypothesis is likely based on the number of infections found in international travellers who went to Iran. We still cannot rule out the second hypothesis though. A 23-year-old woman soccer player: http…

Same goes for their high death rate. Either they're lying about infections (which seems to be the current shared assumption of everyone else) or their version of the virus grew some really nasty teeth.

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

#64

Post by anhner » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

nik_s wrote: post #57

The general issue with this measure of mortality (dead/(infected + dead)) is that you're assuming that the infected won't die. In a disease that is exponentially growing, a better approximation of evaluating your survival chances is to look at the death to recovery rate (dead / (recovered + dead)). Based on the available data [1], we are closer to 7.8% than 2% mortality, which is closer to the final mortality rate of…

I don't understand your first argument. Surely increasing the denominator would lower the mortality percent?

Also does the total number of infected not include the dead?

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

#65

Post by 11thEarlOfMar » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

nik_s wrote: post #57

The general issue with this measure of mortality (dead/(infected + dead)) is that you're assuming that the infected won't die. In a disease that is exponentially growing, a better approximation of evaluating your survival chances is to look at the death to recovery rate (dead / (recovered + dead)). Based on the available data [1], we are closer to 7.8% than 2% mortality, which is closer to the final mortality rate of…

I think you mean (dead/(recovered+dead)).

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

#66

Post by oefrha » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

epmaybe wrote: post #34

Gormisdomai wrote: post #29

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?).

> what's the indication to make the cost worthwhile?

That sentence doesn’t quite parse, but in China COVID-19 is treated for free whereas for regular pneumonia you have to pay whatever out of pocket cost after insurance coverage.

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

#67

Post by nik_s » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

anhner wrote: post #64

nik_s wrote: post #57

The general issue with this measure of mortality (dead/(infected + dead)) is that you're assuming that the infected won't die. In a disease that is exponentially growing, a better approximation of evaluating your survival chances is to look at the death to recovery rate (dead / (recovered + dead)). Based on the available data [1], we are closer to 7.8% than 2% mortality, which is closer to the final mortality rate of…

I don't understand your first argument. Surely increasing the denominator would lower the mortality percent? Also does the total number of infected not include the dead?

Indeed, you are right - I corrected the formulas.

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

#68

Post by anonsivalley652 » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

nik_s wrote: post #57

The general issue with this measure of mortality (dead/(infected + dead)) is that you're assuming that the infected won't die. In a disease that is exponentially growing, a better approximation of evaluating your survival chances is to look at the death to recovery rate (dead / (recovered + dead)). Based on the available data [1], we are closer to 7.8% than 2% mortality, which is closer to the final mortality rate of…

It's difficult/impossible to put a specific probability (which would be an oxymoron) on any one particular person dying. The somewhat vague risk factors take time to accumulate from statically-larger samples if there were more deaths. We know it's a couple of orders of magnitude worse than the seasonal flu but less than the 1918 flu and the plague, hence the extreme quarantine measures to reduce its infectivity to essentially 0. Once quarantine goes into effect, it doesn't matter how infectious is a pathogen because it's dead because of math.

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

#69

Post by Tenoke » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

nik_s wrote: post #57

The general issue with this measure of mortality (dead/(infected + dead)) is that you're assuming that the infected won't die. In a disease that is exponentially growing, a better approximation of evaluating your survival chances is to look at the death to recovery rate (dead / (recovered + dead)). Based on the available data [1], we are closer to 7.8% than 2% mortality, which is closer to the final mortality rate of…

>The general issue with this measure of mortality (dead/infected) is that you're assuming that the infected won't die.

On the other hand, there are also a lot of infected who only have a mild version and are never checked and recorded, which swings it in the other direction.

Edit: Seems like the parent post later edited their post to mention the above.

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

#70

Post by zerkten » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

sciinfo wrote: post #52

There seems to be many cases of young patients dying in Iran. Either because there are way more cases than being officially reported or (hopefully not) the virus has mutated to affect the young more, or both. The first hypothesis is likely based on the number of infections found in international travellers who went to Iran. We still cannot rule out the second hypothesis though. A 23-year-old woman soccer player: http…

> There seems to be many cases of young patients dying in Iran. Either because there are way more cases than being officially reported or (hopefully not) the virus has mutated to affect the young more, or both.

They could easily have had an undiagnosed underlying condition that made them more susceptible to complications. This is to be expected in places like Iran with severe limitations in their healthcare system. It might be a more useful data point if it was from the US, UK, Spain, etc.