Key info


Date:
10 February 2020

Authors:
Ilaria Dorigatti+, Lucy Okell+, Anne Cori, Natsuko Imai , Marc Baguelin, Sangeeta Bhatia, Adhiratha Boonyasiri, Zulma Cucunubá, Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg, Rich FitzJohn, Han Fu, Katy Gaythorpe , Arran Hamlet, Wes Hinsley, Nan Hong , Min Kwun, Daniel Laydon, Gemma Nedjati-Gilani, Steven Riley, Sabine van Elsland, Erik Volz, Haowei Wang, Yuanrong (Raymond) Wang, Caroline Walters , Xiaoyue Xi, Christl Donnelly, Azra Ghani, Neil Ferguson*. With support from other volunteers from the MRC Centre.1

Correspondence:
Professor Neil Ferguson
neil.ferguson@imperial.ac.uk

1 See full list at end of document. +These two authors contributed equally.

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WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling; MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis; Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics; Imperial College London, UK

Now published in Lancet Infectious Diseases; 30-03-2020, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30243-7

Summary

We present case fatality ratio (CFR) estimates for three strata of COVID-19 (previously termed 2019-nCoV) infections. For cases detected in Hubei, we estimate the CFR to be 18% (95% credible interval: 11%-81%). For cases detected in travellers outside mainland China, we obtain central estimates of the CFR in the range 1.2-5.6% depending on the statistical methods, with substantial uncertainty around these central values. Using estimates of underlying infection prevalence in Wuhan at the end of January derived from testing of passengers on repatriation flights to Japan and Germany, we adjusted the estimates of CFR from either the early epidemic in Hubei Province, or from cases reported outside mainland China, to obtain estimates of the overall CFR in all infections (asymptomatic or symptomatic) of approximately 1% (95% confidence interval 0.5%-4%). It is important to note that the differences in these estimates does not reflect underlying differences in disease severity between countries. CFRs seen in individual countries will vary depending on the sensitivity of different surveillance systems to detect cases of differing levels of severity and the clinical care offered to severely ill cases. All CFR estimates should be viewed cautiously at the current time as the sensitivity of surveillance of both deaths and cases in mainland China is unclear. Furthermore, all estimates rely on limited data on the typical time intervals from symptom onset to death or recovery which influences the CFR estimates.

Appendix data sources

Data on early deaths from mainland China: hubei_early_deaths_2020_07_02.csv
Data on cases in international travellers: international_cases_2020_08_02.csv

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