re: #129 A hollow voice says, Guilty, guilty, guilty!

Okay, back to topic #1, could we maybe tone down the apocalypse? Hubei province has a population around 55 million. Infections are approaching 66,000, not even .2 percent. (Even if you limit it to Wuhan, 11 million people, less than one percent have an infection serious enough to be recorded.) And the death rate is a few percent of that.

On the Diamond Princess (again!), in close quarters, elderly population, about 20% infected, 4 dead. That’s .1% of the group.

I agree about reasonable precautions, but could we avoid the mass hysteria?

It may be .1% of the group but it is over .5% of reported cases, which makes a mortality rate of 5 x seasonal flu. In any case, it will take several weeks before the cases all resolve so that the actual mortality can be determined.

As to the Chinese experience, there have been reports claiming that many deaths were never reported or were not classified appropriately — that official death certificates listed the cause as pneumonia, instead of coronavirus. One must view Chinese statistics with skepticism. That’s why I said downstairs and continue to believe that the Diamond Princess experience will be most helpful in pinpointing the true mortality rate, at least in first world countries.