Estimating the Risk of COVID-19 Death During the Course of the Outbreak in Korea, February-May 2020.

Eunha Shim,Wongyeong Choi,Gerardo Chowell,Kenji Mizumoto

doi:10.3390/jcm9061641

Eunha Shim, Wongyeong Choi + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm9061641

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Abstract

Background: In Korea, a total of 10,840 confirmed cases of COVID-19 including 256 deaths have been recorded as of May 9, 2020. The time-delay adjusted case fatality risk (CFR) of COVID-19 in Korea is yet to be estimated. Methods: We obtained the daily series of confirmed cases and deaths in Korea reported prior to May 9, 2020. Using statistical methods, we estimated the time-delay adjusted risk for death from COVID-19 in Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do, other regions in Korea, as well as the entire country. Results: Our model-based crude CFR fitted the observed data well throughout the course of the epidemic except for the very early stage in Gyeongsangbuk-do; this was partially due to the reporting delay. Our estimates of the risk of death in Gyeongsangbuk-do reached 25.9% (95% Credible Interval (CrI): 19.6%–33.6%), 20.8% (95% CrI: 18.1%–24.0%) in Daegu, and 1.7% (95% CrI: 1.1%–2.5%) in other regions, whereas the national estimate was 10.2% (95% CrI: 9.0%–11.5%). Conclusions: The latest estimates of CFR of COVID-19 in Korea are considerably high, even with the early implementation of public health interventions including widespread testing, social distancing, and delayed school openings. Geographic differences in the CFR are likely influenced by clusters tied to hospitals and nursing homes.

Highlights

Since the first reports of cases from Wuhan in the Hubei Province of China in December 2019, more than 84,400 cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), including 4643 deaths, have been reported in China [1]
The onset of the COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea was on January 19, 2020, when the first confirmed infected subject entered the country from Wuhan, China [3]
To estimate the current severity of the COVID-19 epidemic in Korea, we report the estimates of the time-delay adjusted case fatality risk (CFR) for Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do, other regions, and Korea, with quantified uncertainty

Summary

Introduction

Since the first reports of cases from Wuhan in the Hubei Province of China in December 2019, more than 84,400 cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), including 4643 deaths, have been reported in China [1]. The onset of the COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea was on January 19, 2020, when the first confirmed infected subject entered the country from Wuhan, China [3]. The time-delay adjusted case fatality risk (CFR) of COVID-19 in Korea is yet to be estimated. We estimated the time-delay adjusted risk for death from COVID-19 in Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do, other regions in Korea, as well as the entire country. Results: Our model-based crude CFR fitted the observed data well throughout the course of the epidemic except for the very early stage in Gyeongsangbuk-do; this was partially due to the reporting delay. Conclusions: The latest estimates of CFR of COVID-19 in Korea are considerably high, even with the early implementation of public health interventions including widespread testing, social distancing, and delayed school openings. Geographic differences in the CFR are likely influenced by clusters tied to hospitals and nursing homes

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Results