A glimmer of hope

In a rare piece of good news about Covid-19, a team of infectious disease experts calculates that the fatality rate in people who have symptoms of the disease caused by the new coronavirus is about 1.4%. Although that estimate applies specifically to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak began, and is based on data from there, it offers a guide to the rest of the world, where many countries might see even lower death rates.

The new figure is significantly below earlier estimates of 2% or 3% and well below the death rate for China based on simply dividing deaths by cases, which yields almost 4%. While it is still higher than the average 0.1% death rate from seasonal flu, it raises hopes that the worst consequence of the coronavirus will be uncommon.

慶祝一線希望。

一組罕見的關於Covid-19的好消息是，一組傳染病專家計算出，患有由新冠狀病毒引起的疾病症狀的人中的死亡率約為1.4％。 儘管該估算專門針對爆發疫情的中國城市武漢，並基於那裡的數據進行了估算，但它為世界其他地區提供了指南，許多國家的死亡率可能更低。

新的數字大大低於先前的2％或3％的估計值，並且遠低於僅將死亡人數除以病例數得出的中國死亡率，即近4％。 儘管它仍高於季節性流感造成的平均0.1％死亡率，但它使人們希望冠狀病毒的最嚴重後果不常見。

Source: statnews.com
Image: AFP VIA Getty Images