Research on a group of blood donors in Denmark points to its Covid-19 mortality rate being well below one percent of the number of people infected with the disease, according to a team at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.
Tests were carried out on 1,487 samples from Danish blood donors at the hospital showed a mortality rate of just 0.16 percent.
That puts the Danish scientists’ estimates up to 20 times lower than those of the World Health Organization, which is putting deaths at anywhere between one percent and three percent of the number who contract Covid-19.
The study also suggested that far more Danes than the 5,000 which current figures show have caught the virus, with the number possibly being as high as 400,000.
The test looked for antibodies formed during an infection and found that 22 donors out of the 1,487 were positive, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation reported.
However, medics have urged caution when reviewing the figures, saying they are “complex” while also pointing out that blood donors tend to be healthier than average members of the population.
The head of the Danish Health Authority said earlier there was “a lot of contagion in Denmark” adding that there was a “huge dark figure” of undiagnosed Danes.
Denmark has so far recorded 6,879 cases of coronavirus and 309 deaths out of a population of 5.8 million.
Danes have been in a lockdown since mid-March but plans to relax the measures came in on Wednesday. As a first step, day care centres and schools for children in first to fifth grade reopened.
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