Covid-19 statistics: Still far from the peak of this pandemic

A staff member checks equipment in the ICU room of a field hospital being set up in Cremona, Italy. With limited ICU beds in any country, the death rate will increase once medical resources run out, if no other measures are taken. — AP

It is an achingly beautiful spring day here in France, as I write this article.

The sun is blazing, the air is crisp and the birds are singing as I am locked down at home in one of the harshest self-confinement rules ever imposed by the country.

Ever since March 17 (2020), I cannot take my dog out for walks without a signed permit, and even then we cannot stray more than 500 metres from the house.

A national enforced confinement was always the only option for handling the Covid-19 crisis here in France.

So earlier, we had procured supplies of food, mostly dried foods, tins, etc. Soap as well.

A few chunks of meat are also in the freezer, but not too much in case the electricity gets cut.

Also, not much toilet paper because a 12-pack bundle of loo paper takes up around 12,000 cubic centimetres of space, which can be better used for food and other more meaningful supplies.

After all, we have no idea how long the lockdown will last, and besides, we have soap.

Staying in gives me time to investigate the current pandemic.

One of the first things I did was model the likely progression of the disease.

However, as the data was so heterogeneous (scattered) and somewhat unreliable, the only plausible information that could be squeezed out is the likely number for newly-infected people for the next day, within range bounds.

On March 24 (2020), the model estimated that between 26,544 and 45,834 additional people will be detected as infected. The actual number was 43,769.

The next day, it estimated between 19,021 to 49,799 people would be found infected and the actual number was 48,405.

The model is far from perfect, but even imperfect models can be relevant in the absence of anything else.

And it does indicate very clearly that the world is still far from the peak of this crisis.

A Covid-19 patient on a nasal ventilator in a hospital in Vannes, France. Around 63% of French Covid-19 patients in ICUs are below the age of 75, indicating that it does not only strike the elderly. — Reuters

Not just the old

There are a lot of reasons why people, even here in France and the rest of the European Union, are against a lockdown.

Mostly, they take exception to being denied their freedoms, and usually express the view that the death rate is “only” 1%, which applies mainly for older people.

This may or may not be true.

While it is true that most of the people in China and Italy who have died from Covid-19 are aged 75 or more, this statistic merely reflects that older people tend to succumb faster as the news reporting horizon is only a few days or weeks.

So the current death statistics do not mean that younger people are somehow “immune” to dying from Covid-19.

This is borne by the fact that in France, 63% of the people in intensive care from Covid-19 are aged below 75, with 35% under 65 and 6% under 45.

The same rates are reflected in the United States, where 38% of Covid-19 patients requiring hospitalisation are under 55 years old.

Those people lucky enough to get intensive care generally require three weeks of very demanding treatment if they are to survive (and an uncomfortably high percentage do not).

South Korea, which some US news agencies lauded as having a coarse death rate of “under 1%”, now has a coarse death rate of over 1%, which is increasing every day.

If you take an adjusted case fatality rate (CFR), South Korea’s death rate has probably always been above an estimated 1.84%.

Potentially avoidable deaths

An early guess was that the size of a pool of Covid-19 infected people doubles in size every three to four days.

Many people now suggest that this was wildly optimistic, and in a well-populated country without any containment measures, the pool may actually double every two days.

So, if you start with just 100 people, within 14 days, the size of the infected pool may grow to 12,800, of which at least 1.84% (236 people) may die.

It seems simple: Deaths = (100 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2) x 1.84%.

But that is the incorrect equation. The real equation looks at the availability of intensive care units (ICU) and hospital beds.

We know from China that the percentage of infected people requiring hospital treatment is 13.8%, and an additional 4.7% require intensive care.

We can safely say that sick people who need intensive care, but do not get it will die due to the nature of Covid-19, so let us focus on this first.

The survival rate of 1.84% for the 12,800 infected people was derived from South Korea, which had enough medical resources for all degrees of illness.

But if the number of ICUs for our example pool of infected people is limited to, say, 50 ICU beds (because they are normally rare in hospitals), then the equation changes dramatically:

12,800 people x 4.7% = 602 people requiring ICU treatment

602 people – 50 ICU beds = 552 people who will not get ICU treatment

But that is not all. Let us limit all hospital beds as well, not just ICU beds, and assume only 500 beds are available.

Then the equation is modified as follows:

12,800 people x 13.8% = 1,766 people requiring hospital beds

1,766 people – 500 beds = 1,266 people without hospital beds

Assuming that half of such patients can survive without hospital beds, we may get 633 new deaths.

So finally, we can get to the real equation, which expresses the true death rate once medical resources finally run out.

In the above example, it is: (552 people without ICU treatment + 633 people without a hospital bed) / 12,800 = 9.23% death rate

And the above is exactly what is happening in Italy right now, because they have run out of medical resources.

Therefore, just 100 infected people who did not self-confine for two weeks may be responsible for over a thousand avoidable deaths.

And of course, we have many hundreds of thousands of people who are unknowingly spreading this disease.

Perhaps this gives you an idea about how important self-confinement is, and why it is a necessity.

The horror of a collapsed medical system in a pandemic is beyond words.

A jogger runs with her dog in the Tuileries Garden in Paris during the lockdown in France. A signed permit is required to walk your dog during this period. — Reuters

Protect yourself and others

Many millions of people have very probably encountered the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the Covid-19 disease, already.

Most likely it would be as an invisible speck of RNA material denatured and killed by sunlight, exposure or disinfectant.

In other words, they would have come across a non-viable virus incapable of infection and so small that nobody would even notice it.

The good news is that the virus cannot breed by itself. It cannot replicate itself without a warm human host body.

So if any surface has been cleaned by a suitable disinfectant, there is no way the virus can “breed” on it.

Such surfaces can only acquire the virus by subsequent contamination.

So to be safe from Covid-19, one just has to avoid contaminated places and situations where the virus is actually viable, such as being around an infected person.

You have heard, viewed and read all the advice already, so please follow them.

The virus does not only kill people by destroying human lungs, it kills even more by destroying our societies’ healthcare systems and ability to look after its population.

And for those who think they may have recovered from Covid-19, the truth is that your responsibility starts the day you get better, as the virus can remain in your body and be viable/infectious for up to five weeks.

Similarly, do not self-isolate just to protect your own life.

Do it for the many others who depend on you to be responsible to your family, friends, colleagues and everyone you encounter.

Chris Chan works in advanced statistical and mathematical modelling of risks in large investment banks and often applies his analytical expertise to other fields such as chemistry and biochemistry. He also writes the Curious Cook column for StarLifestyle. For more information, email [e-mail]. The information provided is for educational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice. The Star does not give any warranty on accuracy, completeness, functionality, usefulness or other assurances as to the content appearing in this column. The Star disclaims all responsibility for any losses, damage to property or personal injury suffered directly or indirectly from reliance on such information.