Name: What’s the recovery rate for COVID-19 in Illinois? That number is now available. But it’s complicated.
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What’s the recovery rate for COVID-19 in Illinois? That number is now available. But it’s complicated.

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AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneMay 28, 2020 at 7:54 pmAs the state moves toward aimed at curbing the coronavirus pandemic, health officials have offered a new way to study how often people are recovering from the infection.It’s called the recovery rate, and the Illinois Department of Public Health began publishing the figure on its over Memorial Day weekend. The site states that, as of the last count, 92% of those who tested positive for the virus have recovered.AdvertisementThe figure may seem self-explanatory, but experts caution that the latest number must be interpreted carefully, with a heavy dose of context. For example, the 92% rate is based on a group of people whose cases were confirmed more than six weeks ago, at a time when testing was offered mainly to very sick patients.“They were disproportionately sampling the most severe cases,” said University of Chicago associate professor Sarah Cobey, who runs a lab that studies pathogens and their hosts and, more recently, has created forecasting the coronavirus’ spread.AdvertisementHere are some things to know about the state’s recovery rate, and other ways to look at how deadly the virus is:To do the math, the health department took data from May 21 and focused on cases of people who had tested positive for the virus more than 42 days earlier. Focusing on the earliest cases helped ensure that people had had sufficient time to fight off the virus.The health department broke that group into those who remained alive and those who died. Then it divided the number of survivors by the total number of people known to be infected.Here’s the math: 19,725 recovered cases divided by 21,440 total cases equals 92%.Asked Wednesday about the figure, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state decided to post it online because state officials had been asked to address how often people recovered.“What we’re trying to do is to make sure that people understand that, when you get COVID-19, it is not a death sentence,” Pritzker told reporters.But if you continue the math, it means the rest of those infected — or 8% — did not recover. And that’s where the interpretation gets trickier.No. Experts say it’s important to note that the rate is based only on known COVID-19 cases identified awhile back. And that’s a big caveat.AdvertisementRemember how hard it was to get tested in the early part of the pandemic? With supplies scarce, often only the sickest of the sick could obtain a test.“Six weeks ago, the people who were being tested were primarily very sick people due to the low availability of testing. So sadly, they were more likely to die,” said Nigel Goldenfeld, a University of Illinois physics professor who has worked with university colleague Sergei Maslov to develop COVID case forecasts for the state.Illinois has since ramped up testing, from about a few thousand tests a day in late March to about 20,000 to 25,000 a day now.With more testing, Goldenfeld said, the calculated recovery rate should increase. But that rate is not the only way to look at how dangerous the virus is.Some researchers use another metric that is a bit simpler to understand, but also isn’t perfect. They take the total number of deaths, and divide by the total number of known cases, to compute a case fatality rate.Here’s how it would look for Illinois, as of Wednesday: 5,083 total deaths divided by 114,306 total cases equals 4.4%. In other words, of all known infections, regardless of when they occurred, at least one of every 23 has been fatal.AdvertisementJohns Hopkins University uses this formula for its on the pandemic. It has calculated a COVID-19 death rate of 5.9% in the United States.That figure is higher than Illinois'. But, again, the amount of testing plays a key role.Illinois has been testing a higher percentage of its residents than most states. Why does that matter? Doing more tests will turn up more cases among people who aren’t that sick.Those people are less likely to die. So discovering more milder cases decreases a state’s death rate.Researchers say what they really want to figure out is something called the infection-fatality rate: Of all the people infected, regardless of whether they were ever tested, how many died?That calculation would account for people who were not tested because they had no symptoms, or they showed symptoms at a time when they were encouraged not to seek a test if they could tough it out at home.AdvertisementIn Illinois, any person showing symptoms is now . Essential workers are also encouraged to get a test even if they don’t have symptoms. But researchers still believe many cases are going unrecorded.“We’re missing the majority of infections that are occurring in the state,” Cobey said.Scientists across the world have arrived at various infection-fatality rates after estimating the true number of people infected. Australian researchers whittled those estimates down to 13 that could be to come up with a universal figure. That figure: 0.75%, or roughly one death for every 133 people infected.Pritzker alluded to that figure Wednesday in discussing ways that fatality is measured.But the Australian researchers cautioned that the true rate likely could be anywhere between 0.49% (roughly 1 in 204) to 1.01% (1 in 99).Even then, experts note, more research needs to be done on how widely this rate varies among different age groups and people with underlying health conditions.AdvertisementIn other words, the true odds of any individual recovering from the virus depend on many factors and are difficult to know.jmahr@chicagotribune.com Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneMay 28, 2020 at 7:54 pmAs the state moves toward aimed at curbing the coronavirus pandemic, health officials have offered a new way to study how often people are recovering from the infection.It’s called the recovery rate, and the Illinois Department of Public Health began publishing the figure on its over Memorial Day weekend. The site states that, as of the last count, 92% of those who tested positive for the virus have recovered.AdvertisementThe figure may seem self-explanatory, but experts caution that the latest number must be interpreted carefully, with...

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Joe Mahr

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the 6th highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017.

What’s the recovery rate for COVID-19 in Illinois? That number is now available. But it’s complicated.

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