Covid-19 deaths aren't rising as fast in Europe and US, despite soaring new infections. That doesn't mean the virus is less deadly
Europe is drowning in the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic. Infection rates are skyrocketing across the continent. Governments are imposing strict lockdowns. Economies are shutting down again. But there is a glimmer of hope: The virus, while still deadly, appears to be killing fewer people on average.
Recent case and fatality figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that while recorded Covid-19 cases are spiking in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany and other European countries, deaths are not rising at the same rate.
More people have died from Covid-19 than in the past 5 flu seasons combined. And coronavirus is much more contagious
More people have died from Covid-19 than in the past 5 flu seasons combined. And coronavirus is much more contagious
"The fatality rate has declined, in the UK, we can see it going down from around June to a low point in August," said Jason Oke, a senior statistician at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. "Our current estimate is that the infection fatality rate is going up a little bit, but it hasn't come up to anywhere near where we were and that's unlikely to change dramatically unless we see a really surprising increase in the numbers of deaths."
Oke has been tracking Covid-19 fatality rates along with his colleague Carl Heneghan of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and health economist Daniel Howdon. Their research shows that, at the end of June, the fatality rate was just below 3% in the UK. By August, it had dropped as low as about 0.5%. It now stands at roughly 0.75%.
