COVID-19 Case Mortality Rates Continue to Decline in Florida

  1. Jeffrey E. Harris

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Abstract

We studied COVID-19 case mortality in Florida among four successive cohorts of persons at least 50 years of age, each of whom we followed for 28 to 48 days from date of diagnosis. The cohorts were separated by date of diagnosis into four nonoverlapping intervals: March 29 - April 18; April 29 - May 19; May 21 - June 10; and June 14 - July 4, 2020. Case mortality rates declined consistently and significantly over the course of the four intervals: 57% among those aged 50-59 years; 62% among those aged 60-69 years; 52% among those aged 70-79 years; and 34% among those aged 80 or more years. These findings were consistent with progressive improvements in the medical care of COVID-19 patients. We further studied case mortality by hospitalization status. The case mortality rate among hospitalized patients aged 60-69 years fell significantly from the first to the third interval. During the fourth interval, an apparent rise in mortality among hospitalized patients in the same age group was mirrored by a significant decline in mortality among those not hospitalized. These findings were consistent with the out-of-hospital treatment of some patients who would have previously been hospitalized.

This study relies exclusively on publicly available, aggregate health data that contain no individual identifiers. The author has no competing interests and no funding sources to declare. This article represents to the sole opinion of its author and does not necessarily represent the opinions of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Bureau of Economic Research, Eisner Health, or any other organization.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.03.20167338: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.08.03.20167338v1 on medRxiv