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How deadly is the Coronavirus?

Swiss Policy Research discusses how deadly the coronavirus is in different countries

What about the Corona virus resistance of Belgian citizens?

Very well: in six months' time, the CoronaVirus left over 99,4% of Belgians uninfected...

Many countries have reached herd immunity!

According to Worldometer, the Belgian population counted about 11.594.247 people on 1 augustus 2020.

According to the WHO, a total of 69.309 confirmed COVID-19 cases had been reported by 2 augustus 2020, of which 9.845 died.

This yields a death toll of 0.08491% of the Belgian population due to COVID-19, and 0.59779% infected.

In half a year, the CoronaVirus has therefore still left 99.4% of Belgians uninfected ...

A typical coronavirus manifests itself from December-April in the Northern, and from July-October in the Southern hemisphere.

The article showing the above picture discuses the seasonality of respiratory virus infections in temperate regions:

Northern hemisphere:
- Winter viruses (November-April):
  - Influenza viruses (November-April)
  - Human coronaviruses (December-April), e.g., OC43, HKU1, 229E, NL63
  - Human respiratory syncytial viruses (November-March)
- Summer viruses (June-October):
  - Non-rhinovirus enteroviruses
- All-year viruses, e.g., Adenoviruses, human bocaviruses (HBoV)
  - Parainfluenza virus3 (PIV3, March-June)
  - Parainfluenza virus1 (PIV1, August-November)
  - Human metapneumovirus (all year, but mostly January-April)
  - Rhinovirus (all year, but mostly February-May and August-October)
Southern hemisphere:
- Winter viruses (May-October):
  - Influenza viruses (June-October)
  - Human coronaviruses (July-October), e.g., OC43, HKU1, 229E, NL63
  - Human respiratory syncytial viruses (July-September)
- Summer viruses (December-May):
  - Non-rhinovirus enteroviruses
- All-year viruses, e.g., Adenoviruses, human bocaviruses (HBoV)
  - Parainfluenza virus3 (PIV3, September-December)
  - Parainfluenza virus1 (PIV1, March-June)
  - Human metapneumovirus (all year, but mostly July-October)
  - Rhinovirus (all year, but mostly August-November and March-May)

Being infected with the CoronaVirus does not mean that you get sick and develop COVID-19. This article claims that about 30% of the healthy population carries the deadly MRSA bacteria. The deadly MRSA bacteria is present in the nose and does not cause any problems for these carriers.

So being infected does not automatically imply illness. An increasing number of Corona infections, with a limited increase in hospital admissions, is therefore not worrying.

It is disturbing that a corona test is taken by rotating a nose swab in the nose several times.

So it is not even that far-fetched that this injures the person in the nose and that the MRSA bacteria are given such free rein to enter the bloodstream, with all the hospital bacteria consequences that entails.

Given the Health Status Report 2019 issued by Sciensano, an average of 100.000-110.000 people die every year in Belgium.

The most common causes of death are cardiovascular disease (28% = approximately 29,000 people) and tumors (27% = approximately 28,000 people).

So, about 57,000 people die every year from cardiovascular disease and tumors.

Respiratory diseases (11% = approximately 12,000 people), mental and neurological disorders (10% = approximately 10,000) and non-natural causes of death (accidents, suicides, murders) (6% = approximately 6,000 people) together account for 27% of all deaths, or some 28,000 people.

In 2015, 34,353 deaths occurred before the age of 75 in Belgium, representing 31% of all deaths.

It is noteworthy that the +20,000 COVID-19 deaths receive much more attention than the major causes of death.

The figure 100-110K is the mean of the distribution. Given its deviation from the mean, how much difference did COVID-19 make so far?

Newspaper De Standaard published on 3 augustus 2020 an article with the following age distribution of the 9.845 Belgian COVID-19 deaths:

0-24 years old: no data
25-44 years old: 0.4% = 38 deaths
45-64 years old: 4.9% = 482 deaths
65-74 years old: 10.0% = 982 deaths
75-84 years old: 22.3% = 2197 deaths
85+ years old: 35.3% = 3473 deaths
unknown age: 27% = 2659 deaths

This means that Belgian over-65s make up at least 67.6% of all COVID-19 deaths. Since the age data for 27% of the deceased is unknown, 67.6% is a lower limit.

If we assume that 67.6% of the deaths whose age data are not known are also over 65, some 1,797 deaths occur in that group, which would give a total of 85.8% = 8,449 deaths over the age of 65.

Worldometers splits the 15.230 COVID-19 deceased people in New York City as follows:

0-17 years old: 0.06% = 9 deaths
18-44 years old: 3.9% = 601 deaths
45-64 years old: 22.4% = 3.413 deaths
65-74 years old: 24.9% = 3.788 deaths
75+ years old: 48.7% = 7.419 deaths

This means that people over 65 from New York City made up about 75% of all COVID-19 deaths in that region.

The orders of magnitude of mortality rates in Belgium therefore differ little from those in New York City.

A COVID-19 infection in the age category up to 44 therefore results in approximately 4% deaths.

The Belgian population consists, according to Belgian population by age, on 1 januari 2020 of:

2.312.040 -18 years old
6.976.123 18-64 years old
2.204.478 +65 years old

There are therefore a total of 11,492,641 Belgians, of which 9,294,815 are between 0 and 64 years old.

Thus, the COVID-19 deaths by age group compared to the total population amounts to:

1382 deaths in the age group 0-64 years = 0.014868% of the total population.
8449 deaths above 65 years = 0.088058% of the total population.

This means that so far only 0.08566% of the Belgian population has died from the effects of the corona virus, and that 99.91% of the Belgian population has still survived the virus.