Comment by ncallaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ncallaway | Hacker News Reader

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0.5% is still well over 5x as bad as typical flu. SK is closer to 0.7%.

SK also has a far lower recovery percentage (SK total cases: 7478, total recoveries: 118; 1.5% of cases have recovered, 0.5% of cases have died).

Compare to the worldwide CFR and recovery rate, which has a much higher CFR (3.5%). total cases 113,432, total recovered 62,494, 55% of world-wide cases have recovered.

That means SK is catching their cases through testing much earlier (which is great! This leads to both better containment and better clinical outcomes!), but it means currently they have a much higher percentage of "unresolved" cases than many other countries. We need to wait until we start seeing more recoveries in SK before we start celebrating too much.

I'm optimistic that there's a good example of a strong outcome when there's a robust response in South Korea.

(Data pulled from the John Hopkins global case tracker here: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594...

The reason their numbers are lower than elsewhere is the widespread testing is catching the low-grade infections, the asymptomatic and the so on. Those cases are not reflected in, for instance, US numbers as there hasn't been any wide-scale testing. In a huge quantity of people you wind up with sniffles, a cough or mild flu-like symptoms. They don't go in, they don't get tested, so they're left out of the denominator.

That is one factor in the low CFR, but it's far too early to say it is the only factor. It totally fails to be responsive to the low percentage of resolved cases in the South Korean numbers.

If the only explanation was that they were catching far more low-grade symptoms, then we should see a lower CFR with the resolved cases rising rapidly.

I hope that what you state is the case, and their CFR remains where it is while the number of recovered grows. But it's still an unknown, and we won't actually know until more data comes in.

They could just be conservative about reporting resolution.

The reality seems to be that if you're not seriously ill after 7-10 days, it's unlikely you're going to end up on the critical list - never mind dead.

But cases aren't being marked resolved for 2-3 weeks, just in case.

Absolutely, but I haven't heard anything about them being significantly more conservative than other countries in that regard.

I'm not saying the CFR will go up in South Korea. I'm saying it's still early days to make the claim that it will definitely stay at 0.7%. When we get from 97% of cases being unresolved to something like 85% of cases being unresolved, and the CFR is holding steading, I'll be much more ready to spike the football and celebrate the intervention.

None of which is to say we shouldn't be copying the South Korean playbook closely. They've done a damn-near miraculous job of keeping the number of cases from exploding, and the preliminary CFR does look good. Even if it goes up, it still seems likely that they will have a lower CFR that many other places with a sizable outbreak.

Their response is the bright-spot so far, and we should absolutely be copying their playbook. I'm just saying, it's a little early to tell whether their playbooks is excellent or just really good.

I haven’t read anything that said sniffles or runny nose was a symptom. I have a runny nose and was told by the ER on the phone in British Columbia not to worry unless I get a fever.

It is a possible symptom, but listed as "rare".

Fever and a cough (usually dry) are the most common symptoms.

You’ll be happy to know my runny nose has gone away!

That does make me happy!

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