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Comment by balb0a | Hacker News Reader

In Slovenia we did random sample testing. Out of this we concluded that 3% of population had covid-19. This is 60000 people of which ~100 people die. This gives death rate around 0.17. Majority were people in elderly homes with many other diseases.

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NYC has population fatality ratio of 0.17% to 0.23%. 8.4 million people and 14,753 confirmed COVID-19 deaths [0]. They have also 5,178 probable COVID-19 deaths. In other words, around 1 person per 500 overall died due COVID-19. Serology tests shows that only one in 5 people had the disease [1]. So the population fatality rate could still go up to 1 in 200. Imagine a wedding party, then imagine one person dead and 5 hospitalized, that's how bad it can get. There are very similar statistics in Bergamo, Italy and on board of Diamond Princess. Well, Diamond Process has infection fatality rate of 1.8% - 13 people out of 712 infected died.

[0] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-anti...

I am just pointing this out because severe seasonal flu that appears in some years has reportingly ~0.1 fatality rate. Then my explanation would be that those two are comparable. Except covid spreads faster and therefore we see more death in shorter period?

Please poke holes in my theory:) I would like to se poking holes in my theory:)

I'm on the edge of what I know here but. I think the flu is innately self limiting because the virus only infects cells in the respiratory system, and generally only the upper part. It tends to kill people who are frail.

Covid19 most of the time mimics the flu. But because the receptors it uses are wide spread in the body it can an does cause systemic illness. In particular I see more and more comments from doctors about clotting and vascular issues.

Consider strep. You have step throat. And then you have scarlet fever. Covid19 is similar, presents at a mild respiratory disease mostly, or as a serious one with pnumonia, or deadly systemic.

They are sort of comparable. Indeed, 0.1% IFR for seasonal flu is more of an upper bound. For example, Swine Flu that cause 2009 pandemic had infection fatality rate of 0.03% [0]. COVID-19 infection fatality rate is probably around 0.8% (0.5-1 95% Confidence Interval) [1]. So, COVID-19 upper bound would be 1% IFR.

So, COVID-19 appears at least 5 to 10 times more deadly than flu.

But we have vaccines for flu and susceptible population is maybe around 30%. For COVID-19 susceptible population appears to be at least 60% based on Bergamo, Italy, probably close to 100%.

[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8406723.stm

[1] https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*G6ql9WUz114Mdwktyp53Mg.pn...

Serology testing is incredibly inaccurate, and has a ~2-3% false positive rate.

I agree that tests have a high false positive rate, but still how would you interpret results we got?

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