Corona virus (COVID-19) epidemic A stock-flow perspective - situation on March 1st

Abstract

On March 1st, the Corona virus epidemic has already spread to 68 countries. 88,371 people are infected and 90% of infected people are in China. However, while the epidemic is almost ending in China, many outbreaks appeared in Europe, South Korea, Japan and Europe. The rate of infected people in mainland China is 0.55 infected person per 10,000 inhabitants and 11.3 per 10,000 inhabitants in the Hubei province. Situation is already worse in South Korea where the infection rate reached 0.73 per 10,000 inhabitants. To assess the mortality risk, World health organization reports as an indicator the confirmed fatality ratio dividing number of deaths by the number of confirmed cases at date t. On March 1st, C.F.R equals 3.6% for Mainland China, 4.1% for the Hubei province and 0.84% for other provinces. This indicator nonetheless underestimates by construction the mortality rate of the epidemic. In the present report, three methods are proposed to estimate the final mortality rate. 5.0% seems a more probable rate for China and 1.0% for other provinces of China. The most vulnerable population is people aged 60 years or more meaning the mortality rate in countries with a high share of elderly will probably be higher. The rapidity and efficiency of the responses of the governments of countries where outbreaks are reported will also play an important role to avoid reaching mortality rate as high as 7%.