What Do We Know About the Risk of Dying From COVID-19

If someone is infected with COVID-19, how likely is that person to die? We look closer at the metrics used to discuss mortality risk, and what we can and cannot say from the available data.

Case fatality rate (CFR)

In the media, it is often the “case fatality rate” that is talked about when the risk of death from COVID-19 is discussed. This measure is sometimes also called case fatality risk or case fatality ratio. It is often abbreviated as CFR. The CFR is not the same as the risk of death for an infected person – even though, unfortunately, journalists sometimes suggest that it is. It is relevant and important, but far from the whole story.

The CFR is easy to calculate. You take the number of people who have died from the disease, and you divide it by the total number of people diagnosed with the disease. So if 10 people have died, and 100 people have been diagnosed with the disease, the CFR is [10 / 100], or 10%.