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. 2020 Feb;8(4):128.
doi: 10.21037/atm.2020.02.66.

Early estimation of the case fatality rate of COVID-19 in mainland China: a data-driven analysis

Shu Yang  1   2 , Peihua Cao  3 , Peipei Du  4 , Ziting Wu  5   6 , Zian Zhuang  7 , Lin Yang  8 , Xuan Yu  9 , Qi Zhou  10 , Xixi Feng  4 , Xiaohui Wang  11 , Weiguo Li  12   13 , Enmei Liu  12   13 , Ju Chen  1 , Yaolong Chen  9   14   15   16 , Daihai He  7
Affiliations

Early estimation of the case fatality rate of COVID-19 in mainland China: a data-driven analysis

Shu Yang et al. Ann Transl Med. 2020 Feb.

Abstract

Background: An ongoing outbreak of pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2], named COVID-19, hit a major city of China, Wuhan in December 2019 and subsequently spread to other provinces/regions of China and overseas. Several studies have been done to estimate the basic reproduction number in the early phase of this outbreak, yet there are no reliable estimates of case fatality rate (CFR) for COVID-19 to date.

Methods: In this study, we used a purely data-driven statistical method to estimate the CFR in the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak. Daily numbers of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths were collected from January 10 to February 3, 2020 and divided into three clusters: Wuhan city, other cities of Hubei province, and other provinces of mainland China. Simple linear regression model was applied to estimate the CFR from each cluster.

Results: We estimated that CFR during the first weeks of the epidemic ranges from 0.15% (95% CI: 0.12-0.18%) in mainland China excluding Hubei through 1.41% (95% CI: 1.38-1.45%) in Hubei province excluding the city of Wuhan to 5.25% (95% CI: 4.98-5.51%) in Wuhan.

Conclusions: Our early estimates suggest that the CFR of COVID-19 is lower than the previous coronavirus epidemics caused by SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

Keywords: 2019 novel coronavirus; COVID-19; case fatality rate (CFR); severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2).

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The simple linear model fitting for different clusters: (A) Wuhan, (B) Hubei province (except Wuhan), (C) mainland China (except Hubei), and (D) mainland China.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The exponential growth fitting for Wuhan before (A) and after (B) January 26, 2020.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The exponential growth fitting for mainland China (except Hubei).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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