A new estimate of the US infection fatality rate from the novel coronavirus puts it at 1.3%, making it deadlier than the seasonal flu, which in a typical season has a 0.1% infection fatality rate.
Anirban Basu, a professor in the department of pharmacy at the University of Washington in Seattle, used publicly available data on infection numbers and deaths from the novel coronavirus through April 20.
At a county level, the fatality rate ranged from 0.5% to 3.6%, Basu reported in the journal Health Affairs on Thursday.
The study did not include New York City, which has had the highest number of cases and deaths in the country. The numbers of cases and deaths were changing too fast to include in the study, Basu said.
The lowest rate of deaths was in Putnam County, New York — estimated at 0.5%. The highest was in King County, Washington at an estimated 3.6%. By April 20, there were 134 counties in the US that had reported no Covid-19 deaths.
Some context: These are just preliminary figures, Basu said. The case fatality rate is based on the reported number of confirmed cases and confirmed Covid-19-related deaths.
Since it is still unclear how many people have actually been infected, the rate is probably not that high, although the authors did create a model that tried to account for some of the unknowns. The model doesnt account for the number of asymptomatic cases. The numbers will be clearer when there is more testing, Basu said.
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