Nurseandy wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 12:36 pm This may cause offence and I certainly don't want to trivialise a lethal illness that has no cure and is spreading but I do feel things should be kept in perspective in that currently around 500 people have died from the new corona virus. This needs to be considered against the half a million people that die every year globally from the influenza virus but don't make the news.
Apologies if this seems callous just trying to keep things in perspective.
This mornings figures, which are the official ones from the Chinese government and, generally agreed by most experts, to be grossly understated.
43138 infected
1018 dead
4284 recovered
This virus has a mortality rate of roughly twice that of seasonal flu, it spreads faster and because it's a brand new, previously unseen in humans virus, if anyone has immunity, it's going to be a fraction of a percent of the global population.
The Chinese government are now welding/chaining people into their housing complexes, or dumping huge piles of dirt/rubble in front of the doors. Or forcibly dragging them out of their homes to put them into 'quarantine' in huge, open buildings with no privacy, very little in the way of sanitation, and no seperate cubicles. Not tested people, mind you, just people who *might* have the virus. If they don't when they arrive, they most certainly will shortly thereafter given the way this thing spreads.
Since they, like us, deal with seasonal flu every single year, and do not respond in this way, the logical conclusion, even without all of the other data, is that this virus is far worse.