Remarks

The Most Important Coronavirus Number Is How Many Survive

Given the statistics, our focus should be on the most at-risk and slowing the spread for society in general.

People wearing face masks exit the Infectious Disease Centre at Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong, China.Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg

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By Justin Fox

March 13, 2020 at 9:00 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the March 16, 2020 issue of businessweek.

It’s quite unlikely that you will die of Covid‑19. The case fatality rate as tracked by the World Health Organization officially stands at 3.5%, but that calculation misses out on a lot of unreported cases in the denominator. In South Korea, where testing for the new coronavirus has been most widespread, the fatality rate is about 0.7%. Then again, in Italy, which has also done a lot of testing, it’s 6.2%.

Focusing too much on these estimates, though, can be an exercise in missing the point. For one thing, Covid‑19’s fatality rate is much, much higher for those age 65 and older—who happen to make up a second-highest-in-the-world 22.8% of Italy’s population (Japan is No. 1 at 27.6%), which helps explain some of that country’s problems. Those with preexisting conditions such as heart disease and diabetes also face much higher risks than the rest of us.