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Comment by MaxBarraclough | Hacker News Reader

> There is only a ~2% mortality rate from COVID-19

Correct.

> less than the usual flu

I'm pretty sure that's wrong. From a quick Google the best I could find was an Atlantic article saying the rate is typically around 0.1%. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vac...

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I was wrong about the season flu being less deadly. However if we look past lay press like CNBC or The Atlantic because this is cutting edge/developing research, and into the academic press, we see that the mortality rate is significantly lower than other outbreaks like SARS & MERS (9%,35%) https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/199362642/dyaa033... https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyaa033

So it seems prudent to reiterate that the only causes for social disruption & need to prep would be to have unjustified panic and run at stores like the behavior seen in Italy.

significantly less deadly than sars but also significantly more contagious. sars was only contagious once you showed symptoms, which does not appear to be the case here. for covid, los alamos suggests a pre-intervention r0 of 4-6: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v...

the fatality rate increases with age, up to ~15% for >80. i don't know about you but i have older people in my family that i'm very concerned about.

Yes I agree with you, I am concerned with the elderly & infants. As these are the demographics which usually have higher fatal outcome both in diseases, and even adverse effects from drugs/surgery.

Young children are surprisingly resilient against Coronavirus infections, their mortality is so low that it hardly figures in the stats (on an individual level it is still just as much a tragedy).

As the father of a newborn, grateful to hear this. Do you have a source?

I have kids too and wondered about this. Chinese CDC epidemiology study indicates that kids seemed to be spared from Covid-19 (See table 1) http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9...

Age is very significant for mortality rate: 0-9: 0%, ..., 60-69: 3.6%, 70-79: 8.0%, 80+: 14.8%. Also the regional breakdown is apparently a useful approximation of what happens when the healthcare system is overwhelmed (Hubei 2.9%) vs not (other Chinese provinces 0.4%). Also 81% patients reported mild symptoms.

Even 'healthy' age people can get hit hard. One of the first people in Italy to be diagnosed with it is just now coming out of intensive care.

If those beds start to fill up... people that might otherwise be helped through the worst might be in trouble.

https://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2020/02/27/news/coronavirus-...

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