ISARIC report updates fatality rate of COVID-19 inpatients

The International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections Consortium (ISARIC) published their seventh novel coronavirus clinical data report, which gathered statistics of 25,849 COVID-19 inpatients, and discovered case fatality rate to be at 27 percent.

This makes the novel coronavirus as dangerous as Ebola, in terms of the fatality rate of inpatients, said Prof. Calum Semple, director of Clinical Characterisation Protocol, an ISARIC's clinical guidelines project in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

However, the report is limited in terms of geography and patient conditions.

Among those 25,849 COVID-19 inpatients included in the report, 21,566 are from the UK.

The report did not take into account of mild and asymptomatic infections, as most hospitals in Europe and the U.S. mainly treat severely ill patients.

In April, it was reported that case fatality rates may vary from one percent to more than seven percent, according to medical journal

The Lancet

, that said "These values must be interpreted with caution." For example, it explained that in countries such as Italy and Spain where only people requiring hospital admission are being screened, case fatality rates have exceeded five percent, because the denominator is much smaller.

The ISARIC was funded in 2011 by the French Institut National de ma Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), the UK Medical Research Council (MRC UK), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust.

(Cover image: Overview of cohort and outcomes as of 19 May 2020. )