PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Minister Taimur Jhagra has said that judging the province’s coronavirus cases based on fatality rates was a ‘flawed metric’.
“Fatality rate is a flawed metric; no country tests enough to know actual cases (the denominator to determine the rate). But if we must; worth comparing KP with global data. KP’s fatality rate compares favorably with 7 per cent global average”, the minister said in a series of tweets.
“The fatality rate only looks at patients declared positive after a test. With actual numbers much greater, the fatality rate is much lower in KP, and in all countries,” explained the minister.
The minister believes that there are differences in how countries and states report deaths. He added that in Pakistan, provinces may report differently because a common definition was never discussed, and with varying testing rates, provincial comparisons are relevant but cannot be the only comparison.
“In the top 15 countries with most cases, KP’s apparent fatality rate is significantly below 11/15, comparable to the US and China, and higher only than Germany and Turkey.
In fact, 8/15 countries have fatality rates of around 10% or higher”, Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra said, adding, “But even this data is misleading”.
“It is possible that deaths in Pakhtunkhwa are reflective of greater spread, rather than a higher fatality rate, in particular, because of the number of people coming back to KP from the Middle East since January, more than any other province,” said the minister. However, he urged opinion-makers and journalists to understand different interpretations of data and cautioned them not to just draw one conclusion.
“Because in a long slog, the wrong conclusions may erode our ability to fight this challenge,” warned the minister.
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