Based on early stats, I was expecting the UK to have had its first death by now with about 1 death for every 30-50 cases. And although there was a Brit died from the cruise ships, there has not been one in the UK yet. But more intriguing is that Germany have now identified 349 cases with no deaths. That compares with about one death for each 30 infected in Italy right now. Either Germany are finding almost all cases so their detection rate is astronomically high, OR I’ve not factored in a delay between the stats for cases and those for deaths OR perhaps there a new treatments being trialled that are significantly reducing the death rate.
Looking at information on the pandemic in China, the first death was on the 9th Jan. There’s no data for the number of cases before 16th Jan. But if we project back the known cases, then it would be less than ten. The first death in S.Korea was reports on 20th February when they had 104 known cases.
Thinking this through, one possibility is that German (and UK) are currently dominated by people who have recently come in. Because they know they are an “at risk” group, we may be catching a lot more of these people at an earlier stage before CV has had a chance to push them toward death. In contrast, where the virus is spreading, people will not know they are infected until symptoms get severe, which means they self-report a lot closer to the point where the illness gets critical.
If that is true, then the collapse of the NHS may be delayed by up to a week (so 18th-25th March). Because March is the time when flu is naturally decreasing, this extra delay could dramatically increase our ability to cope with the early “wave”.
Addendum
It is possible that what we are seeing is the tip of the ice-berg of cases who have arrived in the UK/Germany. These cases are then “maturing” and infecting others. Those coming back are likely to be fit and healthy, with relatively few needing hospital treatment. But they will infect others with a much higher risk. The result could be a very sudden and dramatic upswing, going rapidly from 100s to 1000s over a few days.
