Estimating Risk for Death from Coronavirus Disease, China, January–February 2020

Kenji Mizumoto,Gerardo Chowell

doi:10.3201/eid2606.200233

Abstract

Since December 2019, when the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was identified in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei Province of China, the epidemic has generated tens of thousands of cases throughout China. As of February 28, 2020, the cumulative number of reported deaths in China was 2,858. We estimated the time-delay adjusted risk for death from COVID-19 in Wuhan, as well as for China excluding Wuhan, to assess the severity of the epidemic in the country. Our estimates of the risk for death in Wuhan reached values as high as 12% in the epicenter of the epidemic and ≈1% in other, more mildly affected areas. The elevated death risk estimates are probably associated with a breakdown of the healthcare system, indicating that enhanced public health interventions, including social distancing and movement restrictions, should be implemented to bring the COVID-19 epidemic under control.

Highlights

Since December 2019, when the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was identified in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei Province of China, the epidemic has generated tens of thousands of cases throughout China
As of February 11, 2020, a total of 44,795 cases of COVID-19 had been reported in China, 1,117 of which had resulted in death (9–11; Appendix 2, https:// wwwnc.cdc.gov/EID/article/26/6/20-0233-App2. xlsx)
Our latest estimates of the delay-adjusted case-fatality ratio (CFR) in Wuhan reach values as high as 12.2% (95% credibility intervals (CrIs) 11.3%–13.1%), an estimate that is 3-fold higher than our estimate for Hubei Province excluding Wuhan and ≈14-fold higher than our estimate for China excluding Hubei Province. These findings suggest that the situation in Wuhan has been dire compared with the other affected areas in China

Summary

Introduction

Since December 2019, when the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was identified in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei Province of China, the epidemic has generated tens of thousands of cases throughout China. We estimated the time-delay adjusted risk for death from COVID-19 in Wuhan, as well as for China excluding Wuhan, to assess the severity of the epidemic in the country. Since the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was identified in December 2019 in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei Province of China, the novel virus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2]) has continued to spread around the world, resulting in several thousand reported cases in multiple countries. To assess the current severity of the epidemic in China, we derived estimates (and quantified uncertainty) of the time-delay adjusted CFR for COVID-19 for the city of Wuhan and for China excluding Wuhan, with quantified uncertainty

Methods

Results

Conclusion