Covid-19 death rate

This is fascinating, if a bit disturbing: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/

This shows case fatality rate - the number of deaths divided by the number of people who tested positive. When this started, WHO estimated it to be around 3% but it ranges from less than 1% to more than 15%, depending on country. And while you might expect poorer countries (like Algeria, at 15.56%) to have poorer health care, the other seven countries over 10% are in the EU!

• Italy and the UK are 13%. (Scotland is at 10% so the rest of the UK must be even higher.)
• The US is at 4%. (Slightly higher than the Republicans who said it would be less than the flu, at 0.1%).
• New Zealand is at 0.6%.

Of course, the death count lags the positive count (that is, some of those who have tested positive will eventually die from it) so the percentages are actually higher. We won't have an accurate count until this is all over.

Sitting in my little bubble in New Zealand, which is now on a downward trend (we've had more "recoveries" than new cases for the past 10 days) it's easy to forget the zombie apocalypse is out there. (The USA is still adding 15,000 new cases per day despite the lockdown!)

A week ago New Zealand only had 1 death but we've added 8 more this week. (6 of those were from a single rest home.)

We are now talking about coming out of lockdown, but that looks like just a slight relaxation of the rules. Restaurants and cafes can start providing takeaways but only if they can do it in a "contactless" way. Weddings and funerals can now have up to 10 participants, but no other gatherings. You can travel "regionally" though it's not clear how that's defined. You can add someone to your bubble, but otherwise all social distancing remains. Most non-essential stores remain shut, as will the borders. They said only about 500,000 Kiwis have been able to work during lockdown (lucky me!) but are hoping to double that to 1 million. (We had 2.6 million employed before the lockdown.)

Of course, what we really need is a way to tell if we've been exposed to someone who later develops the virus. If only everyone carried a small electronic device that was able to communicate with other devices, and report that information back to a central location...

Good luck out there.

Update: Two more people died today, bringing New Zealand's death rate to 0.8%.