Peter - remember the old adage about lies, damn lies, and statistics. Specifically in the case of an epidemic, calculating the death rate is impossible, because you cannot determine the true number of people who get infected but never get tested because the symptoms are mild or non-existent.
Death rate: Number of people dying divided by number of people infected. You need both numbers. Number that died is relatively easy. Number that were infected, that is impossible to know with certainty. The observed death rate, especially at the start, will be much higher because of this bias (all the deaths are counted, but many of the infected that are not too sick are never counted). Harder still when there is not any way to test for the virus! It is far easier, and much more comforting, to just look at the total number that have died, and put than number in perspective. Normal seasonal flu is killing FAR MORE PEOPLE! Over 16,000 in the USA alone have died from seasonal flu, we are still under 100 that have died from the Wuhan virus. If you are in the population at risk, older than 70 or 80, or have an underlying health condition (see the CDC website) or you are a heavy smoker, then you should be taking all the precautions and staying in isolation as much as possible. ------------- Max Charleston SC On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 10:13 PM Peter Frederick via Mercedes < mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > This is actually real. Very contagious, more so that flu (3.5 persons > infected on average by every contagious person) and a death rate from 2 to > 5%, heavily skewed to older (60 +) individuals. > > Serious disease rate is around 20% -- that, requiring hospitalization. > > > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
