Death rate from coronavirus was lower than expected
Mortality rates from COVID-19, dubbed “coronavirus” in the media, depend on the effectiveness of diagnosing this disease.
The director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical and Vector-Borne Diseases named after. E.I. Martsinovsky Sechenov University, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Alexander Lukashev.
The publication noted that in Italy the mortality rate from the virus is about 5–6%, while in Germany it is only a fraction of a percent.
“I think first of all it’s a matter of diagnostic efficiency. Today there is no reason to assume any changes in the virus. We are talking about the low efficiency of identifying mild cases and their absence in statistics. I assume that the true scale of the spread of the virus in Italy is an order of magnitude higher than presented in statistics,” Lukashev said.
According to him, if only seriously ill or deceased patients are examined, the statistical data will be distorted.
The doctor also says that today it is pointless to calculate the real mortality rate for coronavirus, since in most countries all mild cases are not detected.
“Of course, the mortality rate is not microscopic, it is noticeable. But in reality it is much less than expected according to the first data. Moreover, if you look at the Chinese data, it fell very quickly every week of the outbreak and was much lower in other cities than in Wuhan. Again, this may be due to more thorough registration of mild cases,” added Lukashev.
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