Jun 08, 2020 06:00:00

A movie that summarizes why 'the damage data of new coronavirus infection can be fatal or minor'

In areas where the spread of the new coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) has begun to settle down, the debate over 'whether the damage caused by COVID-19 or the impact of closing the economy?' is rekindling. I will. Therefore, Vox, the American news media, has compiled 'Why is it difficult to estimate the damage of COVID-19?' into an easy-to-understand movie.

Why Covid-19 is more AND less deadly than we knew-YouTube


The damage caused by COVID-19 was enormous. In New York City in the United States alone, 189,031 people were diagnosed positive by the COVID-19 test by May 16, 2020...

20,720 people have died in COVID-19.

But experts point out that the 'COVID-19 test is like a flashlight in a dark room.' This means that you only know the number of infected and dead people who were inspected, as you would only see them illuminated by a flashlight.

In the field of statistics, the relationship between the number of known COVID-19 cases and the number of deaths is called the '

fatality rate '.

In New York City, the fatality rate is 11%, which means that 1 in 9 people who have COVID-19 die. However, this number varies greatly by region.

For example, in

Sweden , which adopted a unique policy of not locking down as a countermeasure against the new coronavirus, the fatality rate of the new coronavirus exceeded 12% by the middle of May, but Iceland has fallen below 1%. It was

It also depends on the timing. In the United States, the fatality rate dropped to nearly 1% at the end of March, but it increased again a few weeks later.

This difference in mortality rates indicates that geographic factors are significant. For example, the fatality rate may be higher in areas where the medical system is poor or where there are many elderly people.

Also, the inspection system is greatly affected. If a large-scale study also counts non-severe individuals as COVID-19 infected, the denominator will be larger and the fatality rate will be lower. However, it is said that COVID-19 infected people are overlooked in most countries.

Also, fatalities tend to be overlooked. The New York Times estimates that there are more than thousands of deaths at COVID-19 not included in the official New York City announcement. The figures required to determine the fatality rate vary greatly, so it is difficult to accurately estimate the damage caused by COVID-19.

But there are clues. To do that, we will first investigate and graph all causes of death between 2017 and 2019.

Overlaying this with the data for 2020, we can see that the death toll for 2020 is by far the highest. This area that pops out is '

excess death '.

Excess death related to COVID-19

Istanbul, Turkey

It can be found all over the world, including Spain. Excess deaths include those who died at home or COVID-19 deaths leaked from testing, so this data could make a COVID-19 pandemic more deadly than ever before. .

However, there are also factors that negate the impact of COVID-19. In New York City, an “antibody test” was conducted for grocery shoppers. This is a test to see if a test subject has had COVID-19 in the past by examining the presence of

antibodies produced in the blood when infected with COVID-19.

The test showed that 19.9% of New Yorkers may have had COVID-19. Applying this to the population of New York City, the number of people infected with COVID-19 in early May has grown to over 1.5 million.

If the number of infected people was increased and recalculated without changing the number of deaths, the fatality rate was 11% (1 in 9 people died) to 1.1% (1 in 60 to 90 people died). I will.

But this is not good news. The reason is that many people are unaware of the spread of COVID-19 infections, resulting in many deaths that might otherwise have been prevented.

There are limits to comparing COVID-19 with other causes of death. For example, in the United States in just three months, more people were killed in COVID-19 in 2018 than were killed in a road accident in 2018.

On the other hand, the death toll of COVID-19 is considerably smaller than that of cancer or heart disease.

Before the number of people, COVID-19 is a contagious disease, unlike traffic accidents and cancers, so it is difficult to predict the behavior of human beings as vectors.

'Therefore, no matter how good the stats of COVID-19 deaths are, we can't tell the true magnitude of the casualties this pandemic has caused,' Vox concludes.