Thanks. Yep. So Italy and China have a somewhat higher mortality rate. Wonder why that is? But not the US and other 1st world countries. :::shrug::: Maybe thatt will change. Anyway, I'm definitely not even slightly concerned about it. I'm much more concerned about what the reaction is in the stock market. If I'm not gonna die from it, I'd like to keep as much of my retirement as possible! lol
Yes, the death rate is fluid, and it will and has changed. It's one think that can best be done years afterwards, not in the middle of the initial epidemics as it floats so much.
It's like the R0, it changes based on what we do as countries to address it. And as individuals do (e.g. social distancing/better hygiene by washing hands etc.)
To address your question of why that is that Italy and China have a higher mortality rate..great question as many here may have.
We've discussed on previous threads that if it is only detected in the community/state/country when it has been circulating for some time, it is detected only when severe/critical/deaths happen such as happened in Italy/China you referred to. And in that situation, contact tracing and isolation and quarantine for those is harder and sometimes just impossible. And on top of that, the hospital systems are overwhelmed and cannot take care of all the cases if it explodes. It's playing catch up to folks that were perhaps infected 3 generations of infections ago.
That's the stage that Italy is in right now. And Wuhan was. And others may be such in the VERY early stage such as Washington state in the US.(see how high current US death rate is!)
So, in a new virus to the world episode, the death rate was/is going to be higher in the beginning (Just like the R0). They both are fluid in a new to the world virus outbreak.
Then, after efforts to contain the virus are done, and to get into play the contact tracing and isolation and quarantine (and all that comes with coordinated WHO involvement to the world )... eventually the mortality rate and the R0 is going to go down. (More beds available, docs/nurses familiar with, less person to person all go hand in hand.) Again, think Wuhan.
And then there may be more waves (think Wuhan now/future) where they release the city shut down, folks go back to work, but the R0 again increases. But not as many cases and their health systems are no longer overwhelmed with cases that have on average a hospital stay of 20 days for severe/critical , they have more experience as to how to treat. So the next wave of death rates will be lower MOO. The "bell curve" has flattened.
Hope this helps your understanding.