He and his wife have three children. Domingo was one of 20,720 New Yorkers whose lives were cut short by the coronavirus as of May 16th, according to the city's count. When it comes to statistics, that question about how deadly is COVID 19 has been difficult to answer. The relationship between the known deaths and the known cases is called the "case fatality rate." At this point in New York City, 1 out of 9 people known to have Covid-19 has died. That's 11 percent. But that rate varies drastically across cities and countries. It was over 12% in Sweden in mid-May but less than a percent in Iceland. It also changes over time. For the US, It dropped down to 1% near the end of march before climbing back up as people who tested positive several weeks prior ended up dying.
When the case fatality rate varies this much, it says a lot more about these countries than the disease itself. For example, Deaths may be higher in places where the health system is overwhelmed or where the population is older. We know that Covid-19 is more deadly in seniors and especially those over 75. However, those on the other side of the fraction, the rate reflects how much testing is happening. If a country is aware of more non-fatal cases, its case fatality rate is lower. So this statistic isn't all that useful because we know most countries are missing cases and were learning that were also missing deaths according to an estimate of the New York Times. There have been thousands of deaths that were not included in the official count for New York City. We don't know for sure if it was the Corona Virus that killed them. But here's what we do know, If you look at 2017, 2018 and 2019, and chart the average number of deaths per week the line was constant. For 2020 so far, the lines of death so far have spiked, the line of weekly deaths above the typical death is called 'excess deaths' by researchers, and it gives us a fuller picture of the cost of this pandemic. Were seeing excess deaths in many places that have suffered big outbreaks.