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I suspected the error is the selected value of the denominator. I have shown here that the estimated frequency produced by CDC FluView modeling derives from deaths/hospitalization--ergo diagnosed, or "confirmed", cases, given numerous limitations in data collection, admitted by CDC.
Indeed, in review of numerous, spurious expositions published by innerboob amateur exposition, TOTAL POPULATION SIZE is the choice CFR denominator. This is stupidity beyond the pale of rudimentary principles of statistical description. And a problem in itself that cannot be remedied by quantities of money or PPE hastily delivered to everyone on the planet.
CFR - deaths/known cases IFR - deaths/estimated infections PM - deaths as an absolute percentage of the population
You can't estimate the IFR accurately without statistically significant random population sampling. No country has done this, although Germany may have come closest. (Korea's sampling was skewed by explicit tracking of one subgroup.)
All of the above depend on the quality and availability of health care. There's no formal measure for Base Mortality, which is what you'd get if you exposed a large population and didn't provide any health care at all. That would be a population worst case, and for obvious reasons no one does this - although in fact it would still depend on basic health, social customs, and so on.
Allowing for 80% infection, which is an epidemiological worst case (likely true in the UK, not so much in countries with good early lockdown, plentiful testing, and case tracking) according to one estimate the likely population mortality will be around 0.15%.
Case Fatality Rates
Although the horror stories are getting the most attention, the reality is that around 70% of cases are either asymptomatic or mild.
But the others are bad news, because the remaining numbers will still overwhelm most health care systems - even the well prepared ones. And with asymptomatic transmission, the total number of infections will be higher than it would have been otherwise.
Putting all of that together with some guessing, the final death toll in the UK will likely be in the low six figures, or high five figures if the country is very lucky.
That's better than seven figure estimates you get by naively applying CFR to the entire population. But it's still going to be a life-changing outbreak for a lot of people, one way or another.
PARIS -- French President Emmanuel Macron told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday that he would close the border if the U.K. did not take more restrictive measures to contain the coronavirus. "We had prepared the closure of our border and told Prime Minister Johnson we would implement it that day if there was no evolution [of British measures]," a senior French official familiar with the conversation told POLITICO. French paper Libération reported Saturday evening that Macron had "threatened" Johnson. The French official said that was "too strong a word" to describe the call.
"We had prepared the closure of our border and told Prime Minister Johnson we would implement it that day if there was no evolution [of British measures]," a senior French official familiar with the conversation told POLITICO.
French paper Libération reported Saturday evening that Macron had "threatened" Johnson. The French official said that was "too strong a word" to describe the call.
Continental blockade barely averted.
CDC | How CDC estimates Influenza-Associated Deaths in the U.S.
Laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalization rates are obtained from the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network (FluSurv-NET), a collaboration between CDC, the Emerging Infections Program Network, and selected state and local health departments in 13 geographically distributed areas in the United States that conduct population-based surveillance. The network includes hospitals that serve roughly 9% of the U.S. population. The reported numbers of hospitalizations are used to calculate hospitalization rates and the rates are adjusted to correct for under-detection of influenza. This adjustment is done by using the percent of persons hospitalized with respiratory illness who were tested for influenza and the average sensitivity of influenza tests used in the participating FluSurv-NET hospitals. The data on influenza testing can lag up to two years after the end of the season, so for more recent seasons, testing data from prior seasons is used (1). [...] Some people with influenza will seek medical care, while others will not. CDC estimates the number of people who sought medical care for influenza using data from the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, which asked people whether they did or did not seek medical care for an influenza-like illness in the prior influenza season (6). [...] The methods to estimate the annual number of influenza-associated deaths have been described in detail elsewhere (1-2). The model uses a ratio of deaths-to-hospitalizations in order to estimate the total influenza-associated deaths from the estimated number of influenza-associated hospitalizations.
In the US, state and county authorities are responsible for collecting data on cases of [INSERT DISEASE], and deaths. The data is then reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Doctors are saying that they aren't being allowed to write the virus as the cause of death, they have to put Pneumonia! The only possible reason I can see for that is so we don't see how badly the Tories have handled this virus!! There are also not going to be inquests??— pamaro (@Pamaro25) March 26, 2020
Doctors are saying that they aren't being allowed to write the virus as the cause of death, they have to put Pneumonia! The only possible reason I can see for that is so we don't see how badly the Tories have handled this virus!! There are also not going to be inquests??
In most cases, I think, medical pros are trained to respond to hearts and minds of the living with a visceral, idiomatic explanation of death at the moment of death--whether or not its circumstance is "violent". However, additional responsibilities for and discrete knowledge of death's process also burden the medical pro. (eg. I had a strangely satisfactory exchange with the resident neurologist on evolving locutions for "brain death," while my ma lay dead and intubated.)
Final value assignment--industrial purpose for quantification--necessarily subordinates pathological minutia normally dismissed by the bereaved: proximal (pneumonia, myocardial infarction, etc) and distal (COVID-19, emphysema, etc) and comorbid disease(s)(diabetes, TB, etc) and pathogen (SARS-CoV-2, Staphylococcus, etc) and medical error or fraud. reference Sorting Things Out, Classification and Its Consequences + diverse "bioethical" tracts in consideration of disparate bodies of information operating on perceptions of competence
She has a way of spelling out the implications of the virus to Americans in personal terms while offering reassurances that the administration is approaching the pandemic with a data-driven mindset.
Others worry that Birx, who stepped away from her job as the U.S. global AIDS coordinator to help lead the White House coronavirus response, may be offering Trump cover to follow some of his worst instincts as he considers whether to have people packing the pews by Easter Sunday.
"If you remember that was the report that said there would be 500K deaths in the UK And 2.2M deaths in the US. They adjusted that number in the UK to 20K. Half a million to 20,000. We are looking into this in great details to understand that adjustment." - Dr. Birx pic.twitter.com/sckguwk2tv— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) March 26, 2020
"If you remember that was the report that said there would be 500K deaths in the UK And 2.2M deaths in the US. They adjusted that number in the UK to 20K. Half a million to 20,000. We are looking into this in great details to understand that adjustment." - Dr. Birx pic.twitter.com/sckguwk2tv
Based on original flu modeling report from Imperial College in London with faulty assumptions. 'Sapere aude'
UK will have done well if fewer than 20,000 die, NHS medical director says https://t.co/87uDjKDT39 pic.twitter.com/Pc13LBPLp0— Reuters (@Reuters) March 28, 2020
UK will have done well if fewer than 20,000 die, NHS medical director says https://t.co/87uDjKDT39 pic.twitter.com/Pc13LBPLp0
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