That would mean, with many more cases, the death rate is smaller than previously thought. But health officials said the answer to that is no, it will not change the death rate. City of Houston Health officials said it’s complicated, but it comes down to two different metrics: the case fatality rate and the infection fatality rate. But will all this new data showing more people had COVID-19 but survived, will that change the death rate? But again, Persse said the death rate that is reported daily, also known as the case fatality rate, that will not change.