One repatriated Australian died AFAIK. The British man who died as well was being treated in Japan. Besides, cruise ships probably skew older than average, and not everyone is going to get it. Even H1N1, who was a far milder disease and became the dominant flu strain in 2009 - 2010, infected like 10 - 15% of people.

The CDC in previous studies seems to think 33% of infected in a pandemic is possible or even likely, though. If that's a 1% death rate disease, with 5% of serious cases, that would mean potentially over five million people needing hospital care in the US alone. That's five times more than there are hospital beds.

Of course, not everyone will get it at the same time, but it potentially opens up the door to quite dramatic situations where care needs to be withheld from certain patients and given to others. Man, that's why I hated bioethic classes. No easy answers there.

If we just look at the stats for today (so far) 36 new deaths, 1716 new cases (Before China got added, this is all outside China)
That's 2.1%. The reported stats may be too low, however the deaths lag up to 3 weeks behind. 1% is certainly possible, but cnbc claiming 0.2% to 0.4%, nothing even suggests anything close to that.

A Harvard epidemiologist estimated it at 40% to 70% worldwide infection rate.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/482794-officials-say-the-cdc-is-preparing-for

The USA is also more at risk since the CDC stated that among other things, those with diabetes (9.4% in USA), obesity (31%, 7.6% severe) and older people (25% over 60) are at high risk. (However the average age in the USA is actually not that high, Japan, Germany and Italy are at the top)

Luckily people won't all get it at the same time, but hospital stay can be long as well. Better slow it down while we can, spread it out as long as possible.

Smoking probably affect the statistics a lot as well.

74% of male Chinese are smokers, compared to only 8% of women. No wonder, then, three times more men than women were dying there.

Edit - that also bodes ill for Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Still 40 million smokers in the US and 9 million vape regularly. Only 15%, much better nowadays. So I guess over 42% of people smoke in China (higher male population), that's a lot. Age seemed to be the biggest factor in the Chinese study, average age is a bit lower in China.

All I know for certain is, too late to close off entire cities and too many people commuting here to isolate the virus. Good news, the growth factor outside China seems to be going down a bit in the past few days, which could also mean that we can't keep up with testing and tracking down connections.

It's kind of a real thing, but it isn't the virus, it's the prolonged treatment with antibiotics and antiviral medicine and that weakens the body a few weeks in. Do remember that being combo'ed by corona + influenza + strep etc. it's a real possiblity, so that's why they're taking these.

Not to mention "recontraction" is a fairly sketchy concept given the time frames involved, at least when compared to the chance of a false positive or a relapse (both very common in medical practice really).

Oh man, this world. I just checked that woldinfo stats site again and what is the commercial right at the top:
Find cheap flights from London to Orlando and Toronto to London.
You can't make that stuff up!

I think you are letting horror stories live rent free in your head. Look at your post history in this thread and how often you've been buying into the latest scary rumor. Some people are pushing for these since January, most of them fairly medically sketchy, using the fact China has an authoritarian government as a blanket against further scrutiny. None has been proven true as the disease spread to other countries.

It's a common cold virus that causes pneumonia in some people. Pneumonia is also the most common relapse for respiratory trait infections. It's not an unfathomable biblical plague.

A couple refreshes and it was back (started with advertising travel suitcases today)

The price has gone down even, Only $252 now!

Ugh today we're already up to 1,944 new cases and 44 new deaths, 33 deaths from China with 126 new cases. Either it's contained there while the active cases work themselves out or testing has been reduced. Italy isn't in yet. Daily growth factor for March 2nd was 0.94, shrinking! However USA isn't testing, Egypt is very suspect (2 cases while a bunch of people that came back from Egypt have it)

UK: The government is working on the basis that it will take 2 - 3 months months after the first sustained human to human transmission for the outbreak to peak. That potentially key point on time frames was spelled out by Britain’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance. After that, it would take another 2 - 3 months for it to taper off.

We're stuck with it for the rest of the year. Summer might slow it down (but speed it up in the Southern hemisphere)



Some positive news:

"I think the key learning from China is speed — it’s all about the speed. The faster you can find the cases, isolate the cases, and track their close contacts, the more successful you’re going to be. [...]

People keep saying [the cases are the] tip of the iceberg. But we couldn’t find that. We found there’s a lot of people who are cases, a lot of close contacts — but not a lot of asymptomatic circulation of this virus in the bigger population. And that’s different from flu. [...]

China got patients in treatment early and have highly sophisticated health care treatment procedures. They are really good at keeping people alive with this disease. They have a survival rate (with a mortality rate of just under 1% outside of Hubei province) for this disease I would not extrapolate to the rest of the world. What you’ve seen in Italy and Iran is that a lot of people are dying.

Panic and hysteria are not appropriate. This is a disease that is in the cases and their close contacts. It’s not a hidden enemy lurking behind bushes. Get organized, get educated, and get working."

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/2/21161067/coronavirus-covid19-china
Very good interview with lots of positive news!


USA needs to get its act together and start testing and tracing contacts asap.

Hmmm, let's see the (rounded) numbers being spread around.

a) The simple minded reports: 90'000 confirmed cases of which 3000 have died -> reporter conclusion: 3% mortality rate

b) The slightly better reports: 90'000 confirmed cases, 50'000 recovered, 3000 died -> reporter conclusion: 3% mortality rate

c) The full report: 90'000 confirmed cases, 50'000 recovered, 37'000 still sick, 3000 died -> reporter conclusion: mortality rate unknown, > 3%

a) is obviously FoxNews quality reporting

b) is what everyone is reporting (with erroneous conclusion drawn)

c) is the correct reporting, as of the 37'000 still sick, some may/will die.

3 more deaths in USA. Number of infected will be much higher as they have reported already