[audioguy3107]

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

Just so you know, Buck, even a virus with lethality index of 0.5%, this is 5X the lethality of Influenza. And, there are approximately 65,000 - 69,000 deaths/yr due to influenza the USA alone. So, a lethality index of 0.5% is not very, very low...that's 1 in 200 infected people dying from it.

In actuality, the lethality index of this virus is minimally 2.5, and may be 3 or even higher, as some epidemiologists have stated. Lethality indexes have virtually nothing to do with epicenters, they have everything to do with virulence.

While those numbers are correct, they also take into account the large number of fatalities that occurred in Wuhan center in the first month of the outbreak. The same study showed the lethality rate outside Wuhan center to be 0.16 % to 0.4% in other provinces. One other thing to consider is that there are probably thousands to tens of thousands of cases in China that have not been recorded since some people only get the sniffles or may not show any symptoms whatsoever. I know it’s dangerous to assume, but you have to figure once the case numbers increase worldwide, the mortality rate numbers will slowly fall.