Abstract

Here we report the current COVID-19 epidemic in terms of mortality and recovery compared to the confirmed patient population of provinces in China as well as countries outside of China. Data was obtained from the Center for System Science and Engineering (CSSE) by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and was plotted in log-log charts. For China, mortality dropped as low as 0.08% but then converged to a band of 1%-5%, with the median value of 1.1% as of March 9th, 2020. For countries outside of China, mortality dropped to a low of 0.2% with a median value of 2.4% as of March 9th, 2020. This difference was statistically significant with p=0.0057.A bi-modal distribution in mortality was observed for both China and countries outside of China, which would concur with reports mentioning two possible strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. China exhibited a median recovery rate of 95.0% with the lowest being Hubei province with a recovery rate of 57%. Outside of China, the median recovery rate was 10.7% and was significantly lower than that of China, p <0.0001, t-test. Distribution-wise, both China and countries outside of China were observed to be similar. As of now, the spread of COVID-19 in countries outside of China are showing properties more similar to that of Hubei–the epicenter of COVID-19 epidemic in China.

Keywords:COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Coronavirus; Epidemic