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
Comment
. 2021 Apr-Jun;104(2):368504211009673.
doi: 10.1177/00368504211009673.

Quasi-Simpson paradox in estimating the expected mortality rate from the SARS-CoV-2

Yair Y Shaki  1
Affiliations
Comment

Quasi-Simpson paradox in estimating the expected mortality rate from the SARS-CoV-2

Yair Y Shaki. Sci Prog. 2021 Apr-Jun.

Abstract

On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared SARS-CoV-2 a global pandemic, based on a high infection rate and a high case fatality rate (CFR). The combination of these two points led WHO to forecast a high expected mortality rate of approximately 2% of the population. The phenomenon of Simpson's paradox teaches us that we should be careful when we combine two variables together. Indeed, despite the high mortality rate in several places, this forecast seems to have collapsed. We believe one of the reasons for the erroneous forecasts is that combining the above points ignored a confounding variable - many of the virus carriers are asymptomatic and therefore not diagnosed.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; Simpson’s paradox; asymptomatic.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Comment on

References

    1. World Health Organization. Novel coronavirus situation, report-10, https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/2... (accessed 30 January 2020).
    1. Sood N, Simon P, Ebner P, et al. Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2–specific antibodies among adults in Los Angeles County, California, on April 10-11, 2020. JAMA 2020; 323(23): 2425–2427. - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. International guidelines for certification and classification (coding) of COVID-19 as cause of death, https://www.who.int/classifications/icd/Guidelines_Cause_of_Death_COVID-... (accessed 20 April 2020).
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Weekly updates by select demographic and geographic characteristics, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm (accessed 30 January 2020).