Erschienen in:
24.04.2020 | COVID-19 | Letters to the editor
Zur Zeit gratis
Characteristics of COVID-19 pandemic and public health consequences
verfasst von:
Prof. Andreas Stang, MD MPH, Fabian Standl, Karl-Heinz Jöckel
Erschienen in:
Herz
|
Ausgabe 4/2020
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Excerpt
On April 20 (10:46 h), 2020, the Johns Hopkins University estimated 2,406,745 million confirmed cases worldwide and 165,273 deaths from Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The highest numbers of confirmed cases were observed in the United States (759,766), Spain (198,674), Italy (178,972), France (154,098), and Germany (145,742). Official statistics of the epidemic in Germany are reported by the Robert Koch Institute. On April 20, 2020, a cumulative number of 141,672 confirmed cases and 4404 deaths were reported with a case fatality (CF) of 3.1% in Germany (
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html; accessed April 20, 2020). The infection rate is substantially underestimated because a significant proportion of COVID-19 patients have not been confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) since many patients, especially younger ones, have only few symptoms if any, and many patients with symptoms are not tested at all. It has been speculated that the total number of COVID-infected people is about five times higher than the official statistics. This bias must be taken into account when interpreting any COVID-19 statistics. …
