CDC should improve and re-issue this report (March 18) showing “deaths (case-fatality percentages)” within each age group for people tested for coronavirus….. to be unbiased and to allay panic.
Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) — United States, February 12–March 16, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. ePub: 18 March 2020.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6912e2
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm
(1) The improved report should clarify whether the reported deaths were deaths actually caused by coronavirus or, instead, were merely “case-fatalities” . . . (people who were tested positive for coronavirus and then died, possibly of other causes), similar to the reporting for Italy:
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ (and thank you, James, for posting this link, which pointed out that reporting problem)
(2) The bias in the sample of cases should be emphasized …. .this was not a sample of healthy people exposed to virus, but rather of sick people given the limited-availability tests.
(3) The rate of false-positive results for the test should be mentioned…. it may be so high that testing a lot of already sick and dying people might falsely identify enough corona cases to create an apparent epidemic.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32133832/
(4) The omitted data should be shown.
“Cases among persons repatriated to the United States from Wuhan, China and from Japan (including patients repatriated from cruise ships) were excluded. ” Why excluded? These cases would likely be for healthier people who had been exposed and then tested positive… so these excluded cases are more relevant for assessing the risk to the general population.
(5) The missing data should be obtained…. no excuse.
CDC should follow up on cases to complete the missing data, and then re-do the analysis. Surely, surely the USA can afford the money to obtain the essential data for enough cases to do a proper analysis…. before they crash the whole economic system in response to biased results from (deliberately) inadequate data. (Hmmm… sorta reminds me of climate science, missing any effort to fund a proper hypothesis test for CO2 — same tactic of avoiding the proper analysis.)
(6) The hospitalization and death rates (case-fatality percentages) by age group should be compared to same/matched samples for the common seasonal flu, also by age group. The CDC has the data available to do this, and this matched comparison to common flu is what is needed to dispel the panic. This information is needed immediately.
— Posted on 23 March 2020 at: https://judithcurry.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-technical-thread/#comment-911655
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