Is Corona Just As Dangerous As The Classic Flu? This is the result of at least one US study conducted in April. However, experts criticize methodological weaknesses in the work.
- The corona virus * still has the world under control.
- Is there hope now? According to a new US study, Covid-19 may be far less dangerous than previously thought.
- Here you will find our guide through the reporting and here you can see the current number of cases in Germany as a map * as well as the Corona News from Germany. The most important thing about the topic is also on our brand new Facebook page Corona News.
Coronavirus: study with surprising result - Covid-19 as dangerous as the classic flu?
The elite Stanford University has now published an explosive study. Accordingly, Corona should hardly be more dangerous than normal flu . The researchers' surprising result: The corona mortality rate should be between 0.12 and 0.2 percent - and thus correspond to the values of influenza , ie the "classic" flu.
The Robert Koch Institute currently assumes a mortality rate in Germany * of 3.7 percent . The information varies daily, but is usually around 3.5 percent. According to the figures from Johns Hopkins University, there are even 3.9 percent ( 6,376 people out of 160,943 confirmed cases have died so far / as of April 29: 9 p.m. ). An average of 39 out of 1,000 people die. Now there is a big difference between 0.2 and 3.7 percent. How is this discrepancy explained? How do the US scientists come to their conclusion?
Coronavirus: Stanford University tests for anti-body - 4.1 percent of test subjects are infected
The Stanford researchers had volunteers' blood tested for anti-body * . The ultimately 3,300 participants were recruited via Facebook and were limited to the US district of Santa Clara in California.
The surprising result: Almost 4.1 percent of the test subjects were infected - that is about 85 times as many as the number of officially registered cases.
The study was carried out in early April. On April 1 , Santa Clara officially had 956 Corona cases ( as of April 29, 2,122 ). According to the study results, however, significantly more people were already infected at this point.
Coronavirus: If we apply the Stanford study to German numbers, we would have 3.4 million people infected
The entire district of Santa Clara has around 1.92 million inhabitants (as of 2019). If 4.1 percent of the population were infected, more than 78,000 people would have had a corona infection . That would mean that the mortality rate is also significantly lower and is only 0.12 to 0.2 percent.
If the study results were transferred to Germany , about 3.4 million people would already be suffering from the corona virus . With currently 160,943 cases ( as of April 29, 9 p.m. ), this would be extremely good news. Can significantly more people become infected and not notice it at all? So is the corona virus not as dangerous as expected? Beware of hasty conclusions.
Coronavirus: Stanford study shows weaknesses - virologist warns
The US study should not be over-interpreted. The extent to which the work is representative has yet to be assessed. Experts criticize existing weaknesses in the work. Professor Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit from the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg warns against too much optimism.
The virologist told bild.de (article behind the payment barrier) : “We have to be very careful when evaluating this study. The antibody tests used at Stanford have weaknesses . For example, they also point to other viruses from the Corona family, which can make the number of positive tests appear larger than they are. ”
Coronavirus: virologist explained - comparison between corona and flu tricky
Schmidt-Chanasit is also critical of the comparison to the flu: “The fundamental difference between the flu and corona is the conflagration that can occur if too many people become infected in a short period of time. This problem does not exist with the flu, we have a vaccination and many people have partial immunity. In Corona, there is no widespread immunity *. "
The Robert Koch Institute also warns against the corona influenza comparison * : RKI boss Lothar Wieler recently made it clear that the flu was also dangerous, but the so-called disease burden of the novel pathogen was much higher. Corona is much easier to transmit and leads to much more severe cases and deaths , especially in the risk groups *.
Therefore, the virologist has an urgent warning to the population: "If we now say: 'Oh, it's not all that bad!' And if measures such as the blocking of contacts are loosened too early and then suddenly ten million people in Germany become infected with Corona , our health system will collapse. We see the terrible effects of this in New York and Bergamo. And we want to protect ourselves from this scenario in Germany, and unfortunately, mortality rate studies don't change that either. ”
Coronavirus: Despite all the criticism: "Good news that we can look forward to"
Therefore, the corona virus will also accompany us for a long time. Schmidt-Chanasit thinks little of black painting and gives the population some hope: "The fact that the mortality rate may be lower than expected is good news that we can be happy about ."
* merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network
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Rubric list image: © dpa / Andrew Milligan