Projection of up to 1.9 million people to contract Covid-19 in Ireland
taking one of the conservative death rates (South Korea at 0.6 %), such a situation could result in 11,400 deaths. Closer to 40,000 if it follows the upper death rate (2 %). Obviously lower if it is contained better and the number of cases are lower overall.
However, it is worth bearing in mind the long-term repercussions of a large outbreak that has a significant impact on older individuals. I was reading in the BMJ that 5% of patients will undergo septic shock/multi-organ failure, presumably these contribute towards the deaths but not all patients with a critical condition will die. That doesn’t mean they are out of the woods, as such heavy inflammatory responses in older individuals can be a trigger for other disorders (like Alzheimer’s disease) so you could have a sizeable population going from living at home fine without a carer pre-infection to needing to go into assisted living after infection. That is going to put a drain on services that are already under pressure.
33 cases of Covid-19 confirmed on the island of Ireland
A total of 33 cases of Covid-19 have now been confirmed on the island of Ireland.
www.rte.ie
taking one of the conservative death rates (South Korea at 0.6 %), such a situation could result in 11,400 deaths. Closer to 40,000 if it follows the upper death rate (2 %). Obviously lower if it is contained better and the number of cases are lower overall.
However, it is worth bearing in mind the long-term repercussions of a large outbreak that has a significant impact on older individuals. I was reading in the BMJ that 5% of patients will undergo septic shock/multi-organ failure, presumably these contribute towards the deaths but not all patients with a critical condition will die. That doesn’t mean they are out of the woods, as such heavy inflammatory responses in older individuals can be a trigger for other disorders (like Alzheimer’s disease) so you could have a sizeable population going from living at home fine without a carer pre-infection to needing to go into assisted living after infection. That is going to put a drain on services that are already under pressure.