Death toll from new coronavirus set to surpass SARS, as China's fatalities above 700

[rooster59]

Death toll from new coronavirus set to surpass SARS, as China's fatalities above 700

By Ryan Woo and Colin Qian

 

A medical worker holds a thermometer to check a passenger's temperature at a checkpoint as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Susong County, Anhui province, China, February 6, 2020. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - The new coronavirus epidemic in mainland China is almost certain to become more deadly than SARS on Saturday as the death toll passed 700, health experts warned of mask shortages and more cases were confirmed on a quarantined Japanese cruise ship.

 

The number of new infections in China's Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, rose on Friday from a day earlier, Chinese health officials said, reversing two days of declines and showing the difficulty of predicting the epidemic's peak.

 

The death toll in mainland China jumped by 86 to 722, and is poised to pass the 774 deaths recorded globally during the 2002-2003 pandemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus that jumped from animals to humans in China.

 

So far only two deaths have been reported outside mainland China - in Hong Kong and the Philippines - from about 332 cases in 27 countries and regions.

 

During the SARS outbreak between November 2002 and July 2003, 774 people died globally, while the number of reported cases was 8,098, suggesting a far lower transmission rate than the latest coronavirus, but a higher mortality rate.

 

After China recorded its first daily drop in the number of new infections on Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was too early say whether the outbreak had peaked.

 

The first cases in December were traced to a seafood market in the Hubei capital of Wuhan, where wildlife was sold illegally.

 

"It is hard to say how lethal this novel coronavirus infection is - that is, what proportion of people with infection will eventually die of the infection," Professor Allen Cheng, an infectious diseases expert at Monash University in Melbourne, told Reuters.

 

"While the crude mortality appears to be around 2%, there are likely to be many people who have been infected that haven't been tested ... We probably won't know the true case fatality for some time yet."

 

Hubei officials on Saturday reported 81 new deaths, 67 of those in Wuhan, a city under virtual lockdown. Across mainland China, excluding the 2,050 people who had recovered and those who had died, the number of outstanding cases stood at 31,774.

 

Beijing's communist leadership has sealed off cities, cancelled flights and closed factories to contain the epidemic, with ripple effects for global markets and businesses dependent on the world's second-biggest economy.

 

WHO experts say they have not seen the same rapid increase in cases in provinces outside Hubei, or in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau that were badly hit by SARS.

 

Speaking in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned earlier that "the numbers could go up again."

 

FALSE NEGATIVES

 

Not all of the infected will test positive for the virus, warned Wang Chen, head of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

 

"For patients who are really infected with the new type of coronavirus, the positive rate for tests is 30% to 50%," Wang told state television in an interview that has gone viral on social media since its telecast on Wednesday.

 

"There are still many false negatives by collecting suspected cases of throat swabs. In other words, more than half of the people who are truly infected with the new coronavirus may be 'negative'."

 

Hubei has started to use computerized tomography (CT) scans for quicker and more accurate test results.

 

Memories of how China was slow to tell the world about the SARS outbreak were rekindled on Friday when a doctor who had tried to raise the alarm about the new coronavirus succumbed to the disease in a Wuhan hospital.

 

Ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, 34, was among eight people reprimanded by police in Wuhan for spreading "illegal and false" information after he shared details of the virus with colleagues.

 

Social media users called him a hero and shared a selfie of him lying on a hospital bed wearing an oxygen respirator and holding up his Chinese identification card. One image showed the message "farewell Li Wenliang" etched into snow on a riverbank.

 

There were signs that discussion of Li's death was being censored. After briefly trending on Weibo, the topics "the Wuhan government owes doctor Li Wenliang an apology" and "we want free speech" yielded no search results.

 

LACK OF MASKS, GOWNS

 

The WHO chief warned of worldwide shortages of gowns, masks and other protective equipment.

 

"When supplies are short and demand is high, then there could be bad practices like hoarding in order to sell them at higher prices, and that's why we ask for solidarity," Tedros told a Geneva briefing.

 

Another three people on a cruise liner off Japan tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases from the ship to 64, Japan's health ministry said on Saturday.

 

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd <RCL.N> on Friday banned "any guests holding a Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau passport, regardless of when they were there last" from boarding the company's ships.

 

WHO emergency expert Mike Ryan said reports of Asians being shunned in the West over a perceived connection to coronavirus was "utterly and completely unacceptable and it needs to stop."

 

Taiwan’s government said that starting from Monday it would suspend all direct passenger and freight shipping between the island and China. It had already decided to suspend most flights from Monday between Taiwan to China.

 

Hundreds of foreigners have been evacuated out of Wuhan over the past two weeks. A second evacuation plane to airlift Australians out of Wuhan was delayed after China did not give it clearance to land, Australian officials said on Saturday.

 

Global equity markets and government debt yields slumped on Friday, as growing concerns about the virus' impact on global growth overshadowed a strong U.S. jobs report. [L8N2A759R]

 

Apple Inc <APPL.O>, however, said it was working to reopen its China corporate offices and call centres next week, and was making preparations to reopen retail stores there.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said the United States was prepared to spend up to $100 million to assist China and support coronavirus efforts by the WHO.

 

The United States has sent nearly 17.8 tons of medical supplies to China, including masks, gowns and respirators, a State Department official said.

 

The WHO said out of $675 million it is seeking for its coronavirus response through April, it has received pledges of $110 million, $100 million of that from the Gates Foundation.

 

(Additional reporting by Yan Zhang and Cheng Leng, Se Young Lee, Brenda Goh in Beijing, Yilei Sun in Shanghai; Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Kate Kelland in London, Gabriella Borter in New York and Stephanie Umer-Nebehay in Geneva ; Writing by Stephen Coates; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-02-08

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[Liverpudlian]

<deleted> ! its well surpassed....duming down the world.

[pacovl46]

To put this into perspective, the regular flu since 2010 has been killing annually between 12000 and 60000 people. The corona virus has killed “only” a bit over 700 people so far. The kill rate of the regular flu is around 0.1% as opposed to the 2% of the current one. 

[sawadee1947]

Only 700 died already?? 

Wait... Thailand will beat it in some weeks ????

[bartender100]

50 minutes ago, pacovl46 said:

To put this into perspective, the regular flu since 2010 has been killing annually between 12000 and 60000 people. The corona virus has killed “only” a bit over 700 people so far. The kill rate of the regular flu is around 0.1% as opposed to the 2% of the current one. 

According to the Mail in the UK, death rate has reached 86 in a day in China now and its only just getting started, well that's nearly 300,000 a year in China alone

 

Its obviously something much worse than ordinary flu or there would not be this worldwide panic.

 

  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7980883/Video-shows-officials-protective-suits-dragging-suspected-coronavirus-carriers-homes.html

 

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by bartender100
forgot link

[pacovl46]

20 hours ago, bartender100 said:

According to the Mail in the UK, death rate has reached 86 in a day in China now and its only just getting started, well that's nearly 300,000 a year in China alone

 

Its obviously something much worse than ordinary flu or there would not be this worldwide panic.

 

  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7980883/Video-shows-officials-protective-suits-dragging-suspected-coronavirus-carriers-homes.html

 

 

The panic is because it’s a new virus and unless it really picks up the death rate, which most likely is not gonna happen it’s not that much worse than the common flu. A kill rate of 2% is not a lot. There’s way worse out there. 

[TheDark]

On 2/8/2020 at 12:24 PM, rooster59 said:

The WHO said out of $675 million it is seeking for its coronavirus response through April, it has received pledges of $110 million, $100 million of that from the Gates Foundation.

While I hated so much what Bill Gates did for the computer industry back in time, his new life has been dedicated to improve lives of common people. I like him now. (and it's not just this case, but various other projects over the years).

 

Apple however is simply concentrating of making money, nothing else.

 

 

[Gweiloman]

21 hours ago, sawadee1947 said:

Only 700 died already?? 

Wait... Thailand will beat it in some weeks ????

Another idiotic post from a ....

[pacovl46]

22 hours ago, bartender100 said:

According to the Mail in the UK, death rate has reached 86 in a day in China now and its only just getting started, well that's nearly 300,000 a year in China alone

 

Its obviously something much worse than ordinary flu or there would not be this worldwide panic.

 

  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7980883/Video-shows-officials-protective-suits-dragging-suspected-coronavirus-carriers-homes.html

 

 

There’s a massive difference between 86 people have died on the same day versus 86 people are dying a day.

 

In reference to the 86 people, were you referring to British newspapers in general or to The Daily Mail? Because the latter has a very questionable reputation! 
 

The outbreak started 2 months ago, since then the average kill rate has been about 2%. The likelihood of the kill rate to now suddenly jump to 20, 30 or 50% is equal zero. 
 

More than 31000 people have been infected and of those “only” 6100 so far were serious, which means for the other 25000 it was either a regular bout of pneumonia or they didn’t show any symptoms at all. 
 

80% of those who died were over the age of 60 and they had compromised immune systems. 
 

By the way, panic sells. I’d love to know how many more papers newspapers worldwide have sold over average since the outbreak started. Bad news outsells good news exponentially all day, every day.

Edited February 9, 2020 by pacovl46
Typo

[rabas]

On 2/8/2020 at 7:32 PM, pacovl46 said:

To put this into perspective, the regular flu since 2010 has been killing annually between 12000 and 60000 people. The corona virus has killed “only” a bit over 700 people so far. The kill rate of the regular flu is around 0.1% as opposed to the 2% of the current one. 

How do you defining kill rate?  The proper number is CFR, case fatality rate. You cannot calculate CFR by dividing the dead by the tens of thousands now in hospital, many of whom will also die. It has no real meaning.

 

CFR is only calculated after you know who survived and who died.

 

If you want to estimate CFR you could take the number died/(died+cured). We know the outcome of all these people. As of today that is.  813/(813+2898) = 21.9%. How does the fit your picture? Still not a correct CFR but shows it's far from an ordinary flu. Anyway, it's not a flu at all. 

Edited February 9, 2020 by rabas

[Scott]

Troll post removed.

 

[pacovl46]

On 2/9/2020 at 2:12 PM, rabas said:

How do you defining kill rate?  The proper number is CFR, case fatality rate. You cannot calculate CFR by dividing the dead by the tens of thousands now in hospital, many of whom will also die. It has no real meaning.

 

CFR is only calculated after you know who survived and who died.

 

If you want to estimate CFR you could take the number died/(died+cured). We know the outcome of all these people. As of today that is.  813/(813+2898) = 21.9%. How does the fit your picture? Still not a correct CFR but shows it's far from an ordinary flu. Anyway, it's not a flu at all. 

I define it by taking the number of people who got infected and the number of people who died and then you do a simple trigonometry calculation and you got your result. The official number for the current corona virus epidemic is still 2% fatality rate. Obviously this number will slightly change until the end of the epidemic, but it’s been two months since the outbreak and the number of people who have died in relation to the people who got infected has hovered around the 2% mark. The chances of it suddenly jumping way above that are very slim.

[Opl]

The Covid-19 coronavirus caused an additional 242 deaths in Hubei province on Wednesday, the focus of the epidemic, local health officials reported on Thursday. The death toll is now 1,310 (1,350 across China). In its daily update, the Hubei Health Commission said that 14,840 additional cases of contamination were also identified on Wednesday, bringing the total to 48,206. The jump is believed to be due to a new, broader definition of infection.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Opl

[rabas]

21 minutes ago, Opl said:

The Covid-19 coronavirus caused an additional 242 deaths in Hubei province on Wednesday, the focus of the epidemic, local health officials reported on Thursday. The death toll is now 1,310 (1,350 across China). In its daily update, the Hubei Health Commission said that 14,840 additional cases of contamination were also identified on Wednesday, bringing the total to 48,206. The jump is believed to be due to a new, broader definition of infection.

The new broader definition may be the realization they can't hide so many deaths. People have been reporting on extreme SO2 pollution over Wuhan seen by live satellite. SO2 is a product of burning organic material. Assuming the numbers should have been higher all along then we are at ~3000. Maybe they're afraid of the WHO, CDC coming to see the truth.

[Opl]

There is a lack of masks, protective clothing, equipment, and above all - most importantly - there is a lack of diagnostic kits.

[overherebc]

On 2/8/2020 at 7:32 PM, pacovl46 said:

To put this into perspective, the regular flu since 2010 has been killing annually between 12000 and 60000 people. The corona virus has killed “only” a bit over 700 people so far. The kill rate of the regular flu is around 0.1% as opposed to the 2% of the current one. 

The real % figure will only be known after the virus has run it's course.

[pacovl46]

12 hours ago, overherebc said:

The real % figure will only be known after the virus has run it's course.

Indeed!