How does the case fatality rate (CFR) of COVID-19 compare to other virus outbreaks and diseases?
Once again, we should stress what we discussed above. One has to understand the measurement challenges and the definitions to interpret estimates of the CFR for COVID-19, particularly those relating to an ongoing outbreak.
As comparisons, the table shows the case fatality rates for other disease outbreaks. The CFR of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV were high: 10% and 34%, respectively.48
The US seasonal flu has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1% – much lower than the current CFR for COVID-19.
Sources of data shown in the table:
SARS-CoV: Venkatesh, S. & Memish, Z.A. (2004). SARS: the new challenge to international health and travel medicine. EMHJ – Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 10 (4-5), 655-662, 2004.
SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV: Munster, V. J., Koopmans, M., van Doremalen, N., van Riel, D., & de Wit, E. (2020). A novel coronavirus emerging in China—key questions for impact assessment. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(8), 692-694.
Seasonal flu: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Influenza Burden, 2018-19.
Ebola: Shultz, J. M., Espinel, Z., Espinola, M., & Rechkemmer, A. (2016). Distinguishing epidemiological features of the 2013–2016 West Africa Ebola virus disease outbreak. Disaster Health, 3(3), 78-88.
Ebola: World Health Organization (2020). Ebola virus disease: Factsheet.
Disease with Estimated case fatality rate (CFR)
SARS-CoV 10%
Venkatesh and Memish (2004)
Munster et al. (2020)
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MERS-CoV 34%
Munster et al. (2020)
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Seasonal flu (US) 0.1%
US CDC
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Ebola 50%
40% in the 2013-16 outbreak
WHO (2020)
Shultz et al. (2016)
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https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus