The comparison makes clear that even given the lower death rates in South Korea, COVID-19 is still a far more dangerous disease than the flu.
The overall death rate in the US from last year's flu season was about 0.1%, about 8.5 times lower than South Korea's COVID-19 death rate. While both the flu and coronavirus are more dangerous for older patients than younger patients, the flu's death rate of about 0.8% among patients age 65 and over is roughly one-fourth that of South Korea's current COVID-19 death rate of about 3.4% among patients age 60 and over.
, also reinforced that COVID-19 — the disease caused by the virus — is far deadlier for patients over age 60 than for younger people.country's aggressive testing policy . South Korea has been running as many as 10,000 coronavirus tests per day. Higher rates of testing can lead to lower death rates it means more mild or asymptomatic cases are likely to be caught and factored into the ratio.
As of Thursday, 66 out of 7,869, or 0.84%, of South Korean patients confirmed to have the coronavirus have died. Meanwhile, as of Thursday
What is the denominator? To make this a valuable comparison it HAS to be those admitted to the hospital in need of critical care. That can be counted and counted reliably.
Put that chart next to cancer, smoking, aids death rates ....more cancer deaths already this year than Corona Virus total cases
This chart is meaningless, because we don't know how many people get it, are asymptomatic, and are never tested. It is most definitely more deadly than the flu, but trying to guess the death rate right now is ridiculous.