How deadly is new coronavirus? It's still too early to tell

WASHINGTON — Scientists can’t tell yet how dely new virus that’s spreing around globe really is — and deepening mystery, fatality rate differs even within China.

As infections of virus that causes COVID-19 surge in or countries, even a low fatality rate can d up to lots of victims, and understanding why one place fares better than ar becomes critical to unravel.

“You could have b outcomes with this initially until you really get hang of how to man" it, Dr. Bruce Aylward, World Health Organization envoy who led a team of scientists just back from China, warned Tuesday.

WHAT DO WE KW ABOUT DEATH RATE?

In central China city of Wuhan, where new coronavirus first exploded, 2% to 4% of patients have died, according to WHO. But in rest of hard-hit China, death rate was strikingly lower, 0.7%.

re’s thing different about virus from one place to ar. Inste, never-before-seen strain of coronavirus struck Wuhan fast — before anyone knew what illness was — and overwhelmed health facilities. As is usual at beginning of an outbreak, first patients were severely ill before y sought care, Aylward said.

By time people were getting sick in or parts of China, authorities were better able to spot milder cases — meaning re were more kwn infections for each death counted.

And while re are specific treatments for COVID-19, earlier supportive care may help, too. China went from about 15 days between onset of symptoms and hospitalization early in outbreak, to about three days more recently.

Still, Aylward expressed frustration at people saying: “'Oh, mortality rate’s t so b because re’s way more mild cases.' Sorry, same number of people that were dying, still die.”

WHAT ABOUT DEATHS OUTSIDE OF CHINA?

Until past week, most people diagsed outside of China h become infected while traveling re.

People who travel generally are healthier and thus may be better able to recover, ted Johns Hopkins University outbreak specialist Lauren Sauer. And countries began screening returning travelers, spotting infections far earlier in places where medical system wasn’t alrey strained.

That’s w changing, with clusters of cases in Japan, Italy and Iran, and death toll outside of China growing.

Aylward cautioned that authorities should be careful of “artificially high” death rates early on: Some of those countries likely are seeing sickest patients at first and missing milder cases, just like Wuhan did.

HOW DOES COVID-19 COMPARE TO OR DISEASES?

A cousin of this new virus caused far delier severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003, and about 10% of SARS patients died.

Flu is a different virus family, and some strains are delier than ors. On aver, death rate from seasonal flu is about 0.1%, said Dr. Anthony Fauci of U.S. National Institutes of Health.

That's far lower than what has been calculated so far for COVID-19. But millions of people get flu every year around world, leing to an annual death toll in hundreds of thousands.

WHO’S MOST AT RISK FROM COVID-19?

Older people, especially those with chronic illnesses such as heart or lung diseases, are more at risk.

Among younger people, deaths are rarer, Aylward said. But some young deaths have me helines, such as 34-year-old doctor in China who was reprimanded by communist authorities for sounding an early alarm about virus only to later succumb to it.

In China, 80% of patients are mildly ill when virus is detected, compared with 13% who alrey are severely ill. While sickest to start with are at highest risk of death, Aylward said, a fraction of mildly ill do go on to die — for unkwn reasons.

On aver, however, WHO says people with mild cases recover in about two weeks, while those who are sicker can take anywhere from three to six weeks.