Early estimation of the case fatality rate of COVID-19 in mainland China: a data-driven analysis

Abstract

Background An ongoing outbreak of pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2], named COVID-19, hit a major city of China, Wuhan in December 2019 and subsequently spread to other provinces/regions of China and overseas. Several studies have been done to estimate the basic reproduction number in the early phase of this outbreak, yet there are no reliable estimates of case fatality rate (CFR) for COVID-19 to date. Methods In this study, we used a purely data-driven statistical method to estimate the CFR in the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak. Daily numbers of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths were collected from January 10 to February 3, 2020 and divided into three clusters: Wuhan city, other cities of Hubei province, and other provinces of mainland China. Simple linear regression model was applied to estimate the CFR from each cluster. Results We estimated that CFR during the first weeks of the epidemic ranges from 0.15% (95% CI: 0.12-0.18%) in mainland China excluding Hubei through 1.41% (95% CI: 1.38-1.45%) in Hubei province excluding the city of Wuhan to 5.25% (95% CI: 4.98-5.51%) in Wuhan. Conclusions Our early estimates suggest that the CFR of COVID-19 is lower than the previous coronavirus epidemics caused by SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).