The 10% or higher COVID-19 fatality rate group we described earlier (1) needs to be renamed 12% or higher COVID-19 fatality rate group as Belgium (with a 16.4% fatality rate), France (with 15.1%), UK (14,5%), Italy (14%), Hungary (12,9%), Netherlands (12,9%) and Sweden (12,4%) have all surpassed the 12% COVID-19 fatality rate mark and distanced themselves from all other European countries, and any other country worldwide with measurable infection numbers for that matter, with a mortality rate of roughly 10% or below, clearly setting themselves apart globally.
Population testing has been increasing but fatality rates in the 12% or higher COVID-19 fatality rate group of countries are not showing signs of coming down. Will they ever?
Not far from these geographies reality is quite different: countries like Portugal, Austria and Germany show 4% fatality rates and have tested a not very different percentage of their population from the high COVID-19 fatality rate group (approximately 3 to 5% of the population of the former group of countries have been tested). The fatality rate has also been increasing in this group but with a trend to stabilize around 4%. And Luxembourg, with the highest infection density in the European Union, has a fatality rate below 3% after having tested over 10% of its population.
Even in the USA, where the situation clearly got out of control, nationwide fatality rate is stabilizing around 6%. And despite rapid growth of the pandemic in Brazil, it is hard to envision this country hitting the mortality rate of the European countries of high mortality. A lot of people are likely to die from the disease in Brazil on a per million population basis, as happened in Spain, but their fatality rate is not likely to reach 10%.
The only country that obviously seems to be trending to a 10% or higher fatality rate is Mexico. Not many other countries seem to be at risk of taking the same route. Most appear to be trending for fatality rates well below 10%.
Two questions deserve some consideration:
1. What is it then that justifies the high fatality rate of some western European countries? I don’t get it yet.
2. And how has Spain managed to control its fatality rate around 10% despite being the second country worldwide in number of deaths per million population? Is it due to the therapeutic regimen Spain adopted? We will continue to explore this hypothesis.
New possibilities:
For more than ten years, ALERT developed a healthcare planning system that may alleviate this type of crisis. I will be happy to let you know more about it. You can also learn about COVID-19 governance, statistics and digital approaches here at alert-online.com.
M. Jorge Guimarães, M.D., Ph.D.
Founder & President
ALERT Life Sciences Computing
jorge.guimaraes@alert-online.com
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