Covid-19: A Tentative Estimation of Fatality Rates using Random Forest Algorithm

The outbreak of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) previously known as 2019 Novel Corona Virus, are known to belong to a family of viruses namely the ‘Coronaviruses’. These viruses are known to affect both animals and humans. These viruses are responsible for several prevailing infections such as a common cold to life-threatening ailments like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). COVID-19 is caused by a new virus belonging to this family known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2). This outbreak in December 2019 began in Wuhan, China. The virus spread across 114 countries so rapidly that it has been declared as a “pandemic” by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020 itself[1] . As of now, there is no cure or vaccination to prevent this infection. The people affected by this virus will have mild to moderate respiratory illness like pneumonia and can recover by receiving supportive care under medical supervision. However, it has been observed that older people and people with a medical history of heart diseases, Diabetes, long-term respiratory diseases, and cancer are more at risk for severe illness. In this paper, the possibility of the death of the