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Comment by baq | Hacker News Reader

2% may be still too high, it might even be high sub 1% (e.g. .7%), but the big problem is how many of cases require hospitalization and especially intensive care. if number of ICU patients grows 10x in one month, we're all in trouble and that's seemingly what happened in China.

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The numbers I have seen were between 2% and 3%, higher for males and lower for females. I did not seen sub 1% anywhere.

I don't understand how this figure keeps getting quoted.

Out of cases that have been fully resolved we're now at an 8% mortality rate. 2% is counting ongoing cases, that's not the figure you should be looking at.

Because the 8% mortality rate is based on resolved cases, and it generally takes people longer to fully recover than it does to die, so it is skewed upwards. A couple of weeks ago, the same mortality figure was near 30%, because most people with the disease who were not going to die hadn't had time to recover yet. Things are still early enough that the 8% figure will continue to go down.

Additionally, it is widely acknowledged that the actual number of cases is undercounted, with the mildest cases less likely to have been tested and included in those numbers, again resulting in overly high numbers.

And finally, it would appear that Wuhan in particular is skewing the numbers higher, as being the site of the outbreak it was caught off guard and has struggled to manage the number of cases. Elsewhere in both China and the world, the death rate is far lower.

The estimate of 8% is unquestionably much too high. Exactly what the mortality rate is will still take more time to discover.

Thanks.

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