Confirmed case numbers reflect not only how many people are contracting covid-19, but how many are being tested for it
ONE OF THE trickier tasks for epidemiologists studying the coronavirus pandemic is determining just how prevalent it is. According to Johns Hopkins University, there are now 886,000 confirmed cases of covid-19 around the world, or roughly one case for every 9,000 people. But these numbers reflect not only how many people are known to have contracted the illness, but how many are being tested for it. This varies widely from country to country. Germany is testing 500,000 of its citizens each week.
The results suggest the virus is far more prevalent than official case counts would suggest. Across the 11 European countries studied, official government statistics indicate that there are 319,500 confirmed cases, affecting less than 0.1% of the population. The Imperial researchers peg the more likely figure at 18.5m cases , which suggests that, as of March 28th, 5% of the population in these countries have contracted the virus.
This high infection rate is partly because of the highly contagious nature of the virus. The epidemiologists estimated the “basic reproduction number” of covid-19 to be 3.9, meaning that in a population where no one is immune, and no precautions are taken to control the outbreak, each infected individual passes on the virus to nearly four other people.
The researchers estimate that timely interventions over the past month have reduced the reproduction number of the virus across the 11 countries studied by two-thirds to 1.4, thus saving between 21,000 and 120,000 lives. In Italy, alone, interventions have prevented some 38,000 deaths, according to the researchers. The past few weeks have been tough for those hit by the crisis. They can take some solace in knowing that it could have been much worse.
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