During a media briefing in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the death rate for COVID-19 is higher than previously thought.
“There is now a total of 90,893 reported cases of COVID-19 globally, and 3110 deaths,” he said, meaning “about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.”
It is important to note that these numbers only reflect the mortality rate of reported cases.
This is a change from a WHO report last week, which said the mortality rate ranged from 0.7-4%, depending on the healthcare of the country where it gets treated.
Dr. Ghebreyesus also spoke on efforts to create a vaccine: “At the moment there is no vaccine and no specific treatment for COVID-19. However, clinical trials of therapeutics are now being done, and more than 20 vaccines are in development.”
He concluded the briefing by comparing and contrasting COVID-19 to seasonal flu:
“To summarize, COVID-19 spreads less efficiently than flu, transmission does not appear to be driven by people who are not sick, it causes more severe illness than flu, there are not yet any vaccines or therapeutics, and it can be contained – which is why we must do everything we can to contain it.”
You can read his entire statement here.
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