Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Aug;14(4):e1-e2.
doi: 10.1017/dmp.2020.106. Epub 2020 Apr 16.

Investigating the Determinants of High Case-Fatality Rate for Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Italy

Francesco Barone-Adesi  1   2 , Luca Ragazzoni  1   2 , Maurizio Schmid  3
Affiliations

Investigating the Determinants of High Case-Fatality Rate for Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Italy

Francesco Barone-Adesi et al. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Case-Fatality Rate (CFR) for COVID-19 in Italy is apparently much higher than in other countries. Using data from Italy and other countries we evaluated the role of different determinants of this phenomenon. We found that the Italian testing strategy could explain an important part of the observed difference in CFR. In particular, the majority of patients that are currently tested in Italy have severe clinical symptoms that usually require hospitalization and this translates to a large CFR. We are confident that, once modifications in the testing strategy leading to higher population coverage are consistently adopted in Italy, CFR will realign with the values reported worldwide.

Keywords: epidemiologic methods; infection control; public health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Relation Between the Proportion of Cases Admitted to the Hospital and Case-Fatality Rate in Different Italian Regions. (Only Regions With Mortality Rates for COVID-19 Above 1 per 10 000 Inhabitants are Reported.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Khafaie MA, Rahim F. Cross-country comparison of case fatality rates of COVID-19/SARS-COV-2. Osong Public Health Res Perspect. 2020;11(2):74–80. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Onder G, Rezza G, Brusaferro S. Case-fatality rate and characteristics of patients dying in relation to COVID-19 in Italy. JAMA. 2020;epub. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4683. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rubino S, Kelvin N, Bermejo-Martin JF, Kelvin D. As COVID-19 cases, deaths and fatality rates surge in Italy, underlying causes require investigation. J Infect Dev Countr. 2020;14(3):265–267. - PubMed
    1. Yuan J, Li M, Lv G, Lu ZK. Monitoring transmissibility and mortality of COVID-19 in Europe. Int J Infect Dis. 2020;epub. pii:S1201-9712(20)30182-X. doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2020.03.050. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. GitHub. Italian civil protection. Daily report of cases in Italy. n. d. https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/tree/master/schede-riepilogative. Accessed March 25, 2020.