Your risk of death Coronavirus has just won a lot lower
The new antibody tests reveal that more people have been infected with COVID-19 than previous thought.
Since December 2019, when the first cases of COVID-19 have begun to appear in Wuhan, China, experts have felt that the highly infectious virus mortality rate was about 5% or more. However, new evidence supported by antibody tests are in the forefront of researchers to believe that the virus is more common and less mortal than previously raw.
Previously, estimates of mortality rates were calculated based on the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19, using tests that detected the presence of viruses in an individual's body. Scientists did not take into account those who were infected with the virus and who were either asymptomatic, did not realize, they had not had and / or were sick enough to justify tests.
However, now, researchers melt their antibody test calculations, looking for blood antibodies that suggest an earlier infection - not the virus itself. Research suggests that many people have been infected at some point, but have never become seriously ill. If added in the general data, the mortality rate falls considerably.
"The best estimates for the risk of infection mortality are between 0.5% and 1%", "Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Health Center, explained toNPR. Although the number is much lower than previous estimates, it is still important, depending on the river. "It's more deadly than seasonal flu," she says.
These last estimates are also early predatory parallels of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the Coronavirus White House Working Group. In March, Dr. Façi and his colleagues wrote inNew England Journal of Medicine, that the case mortality rate for the virus "can be considerably less than 1%".
These last discoveries result from antibody test efforts in the county. Indiana is one of the first states to complement the first phase, after their governor's office turned toNir Menachemi, President of the Department of Health and Management Policy of Indiana University of the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, in order to compile information on the infection and the mortality rate of the virus.
At the time, "it was really difficult to know for sure," said Menachemi at NPR, noting that the only information available at the time were based on coronavirus tests, which did not really have those who were Pretty sick to be tested. "And frankly, not only in our state, but in any state."
At the end of April, he started conducting a study of more than 4,600 people through the state, which gives them two tests: one who tests an active virus and a blood test in search of antibodies to the virus. The first results showed that about 3% of the state population - 188,000 people - had been infected.
"That 188,000 people accounted for about 11 times more people than conventional selective tests had identified in the state at this point," he says. It is interesting to note that 45% of those who had antibodies, reported have no symptoms at all.
With this new data, Menachemi and his team calculated the "infection mortality rate" at 0.58% or a death by 172 infections - which determines the chances that an infected person will die. Previously, scientists worked with a "case mortality rate", which determines the chances that someone who develops mourra symptoms.
Other states, includingnew YorkFlorida and California calculated similar fattening rates - or even less lower infection. According toNew York TimesNearly 20% of New York residents have coronavirus antibodies. InLos AngelesThe percentage is much lower - nearly 5%.
While your coronavirus death risk can be lower than you however, keep in mind that some populations are always higher. "Fortunately, children and young adults are at low risk of serious illness and death," says rivers. "But the elderly are at a fairly high risk."
Until there is a vaccine, it is important to continue to follow the advice of theCDC: Social distance as much as possible, practice hygiene of diligent hands, clean and disinfect the surfaces and wear a protective face coating when others.
And to cross this pandemic with your healthiest, do not miss these Things you should never do during the pandemic coronavirus .