
Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths - davedx
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
======
nik_s
The general issue with this measure of mortality (dead/(infected + dead)) is
that you're assuming that the infected won't die. In a disease that is
exponentially growing, a better approximation of evaluating your survival
chances is to look at the death to recovery rate (dead / (recovered + dead)).
Based on the available data [1], we are closer to 7.8% than 2% mortality,
which is closer to the final mortality rate of SARS of 9.6% [2].

Nevertheless, I think all these statistics need to be taken with a grain of
salt - I doubt that the numbers we are seeing are of very high quality, given
the political and cultural pressures in China to underreport, the lack of test
kits, corona virus deaths being attributed to other diseases, ... On the flip
side, it's very likely that mild cases will never be reported, which in turn
would decrease the mortality rate.

[1]
[https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome)

[edit: corrected the formula - thank you @anhner and @11thEarlOfMar for
spotting the mistake]

[edit: indicated that there's also a chance of under-reporting mild cases - my
edit coincided with @Tenoke's post - sorry for noticing this late @Tenoke]

~~~
mns
I do have one question and I'm asking this seriously, not to start an argument
or to attack someone. I also saw this here in a lot of the posts about
covid-19. We have numbers, but every time people tend to ignore them or say we
should not trust the numbers, take them with a grain of salt, "I think this is
way worse, it's going to get way worse" and so on. It's like there is this
thirst for disaster or some global drama everywhere, and this is not something
that I would expect from Hackernews. If the numbers don't align with our hopes
or fears, we should take them with a grain of salt and trust the gut feeling
of whoever comments. It's quite weird to see that when it comes to this,
people seem to think that it's some sort of conspiracy, China is hiding
numbers, now EU is not doing things properly, as I see it everywhere "my
country can't have 0 cases, I know that our airport is a big hub and it can't
be, we will be doomed as we probably have hundred of cases instead of none and
our government is not doing anything".

I'm not saying that this virus is not a threat and I worry for my parents as
this could be a big issue for their condition, but we've gone down the rabbit
hole with the hysteria in the press and online and it's scary to see this need
for a global pandemic and the urge to constantly feed the panic monster.

~~~
ajsnigrutin
The problem is in the healthcare capacities.

I live in a country with ~2mio people. If you're patient zero here, you get a
comfy private room, your own bed, 5 doctors, 10 nurses, whole research teams,
respirators, priority with all the tests, examinations, etc. Same for patient
1, 2, 3.

If 200k people get infected (10% of population), and only 10% of those need
extra medical care, that's 20.000 people. We don't have that many hospital
beds, doctors, respirators.. probably not even enough medicine (some test have
shown that malaria medicine and aids medicine works on some people). You get
thrown into an army tent or a school gym with many more ill people, and you
get almost zero resources. Need a respirator? Sorry, only 5 available at that
location, and are used on other people.. or kids.. or pregnant women... and
you can just slowly suffocate.

China built a hospital in a couple of days. I don't think there's a country in
EU that can do anything remotely fast as that.. we probably need 10 days just
to discuss where to put the emergency tents, and even then we'd get protesters
not wanting them there. Same probably in the USA.

We also don't have companies making respirators and other medical equipment.
Large countries who do, are making them for their own hospitals (if they're
not stuck in paperpushing hell with the government).

Basically, if there's a wide-spread epidemic, a lot of people will get really
really fscked.

~~~
fragmede
I don't disagree with your position - if there's a wide-spread epidemic,
things will go bad, especially as the healthcare system gets overwhelmed. But
that's not a novel or interesting point of view, and I doubt many would
disagree. So why go around inciting panic?

Lets try some other numbers. If 1% of the population gets infected, and 1%
needs extra medical care, that's 200 people. If 0.1% of the population is
infected and 0.1% of the population need extra medical care, that's... two
people. That's not so scary, and I'm not going to slowly suffocate. (There's
no need to threaten me with asphyxiation, thanks.) We don't have any reliable
information, so any numbers used for "back of the envelope" math might as well
be relating my birth date to star signs and be used to find my future lover,
for all the basis in reality they ultimately have.

I mean, you're scared. I get it, I'm scared too. I feel powerless in the face
of this epidemic and being told to wash my hands a bit more, and touch my face
less only serves to reiterate my impotence. Is that where the thirst for
disaster potential comes from? An addiction to the panic endorphins?

(I am genuinely curious, and am hopeful that mns' comment will stimulate
commentary about the meta-topic.) (And apologies for singling you out
personally, ajsnigrutin, the other sibling replies are of the same nature and
yours was the comment I chose to reply to.)

~~~
watwut
That is where speed of spreading the disease comes in. If you can limit it so
that 1% of population in local area is sick simultaneously, then it is fine.

If you cant limit the speed of spreading the disease, then the hospitals will
miss those needed respirators and more people will die. Cause respirator is
necessary if you are one of the unlucky ones.

Which is where "hysteria" around locking areas, washing hands and testing
people on airports comes in. That is why locking cities, working from home and
having some reasonable amount of food so that you are comfortable. The whole
point is to slow down spreading, so that resources are available for sick
people.

> I feel powerless in the face of this epidemic and being told to wash my
> hands a bit more, and touch my face less only serves to reiterate my
> impotence. Is that where the thirst for disaster potential comes from? An
> addiction to the panic endorphins?

It is not impotent to wash hands and touch face less and avoid unnecessary
crowd. That done in masses is to slow down the spread. It is all actually
useful.

------
sciinfo
There seems to be many cases of young patients dying in Iran. Either because
there are way more cases than being officially reported or (hopefully not) the
virus has mutated to affect the young more, or both.

The first hypothesis is likely based on the number of infections found in
international travellers who went to Iran. We still cannot rule out the second
hypothesis though.

A 23-year-old woman soccer player:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/faadg4/a_23_ye...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/faadg4/a_23_year_old_iranian_woman_soccer_player_has/)

A male nurse talking of 8 deaths in one night during his shift. 23-year-old
female (same case?), 29- and 30-year-old males, 50-year-old female among them.
(1-minute clip)

EDIT: It's just n=8, but 37.5% dying at age 30 or below is most likely drawn
from a different distribution from 0.6% among the 70,000+ cases in the largest
Chinese study (where the worldometers data comes from).

EDIT 2: Based on a link in a sibling comment, only 7 deaths among 20-29 yo and
18 deaths among 30-39 yo in the n=44,672 Chinese report.

[https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1232779487647031302](https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1232779487647031302)

[http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9...](http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51#Table1)

~~~
drclau
There’s something off about Iran. According to Wikipedia [0], Spanish Flu
killed a much higher percentage in Iran too, in comparison with the rest of
the world:

“The World Health Organization estimates that 2–3% of those who were infected
died (case-fatality ratio).

[...]

In Iran, the mortality was very high: according to an estimate, between
902,400 and 2,431,000, or 8% to 22% of the total population died.” — source,
Wikipedia, see [0].

I wonder if it’s genetics (immune system reacts differently?), or cultural
(habits - kissing on cheeks, handshaking, large religious or non-religious
gatherings) or climate, or a mix.

References: [0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu)

Edit: admittedly, it’s too early to draw conclusions. It’ll take a few weeks
to have more realistic numbers.

~~~
AJRF
It's hard to find up to date records filtered by country, but they might have
higher count of the ACE2 enzyme which is thought to be an entry point for
coronaviruses. Asian populations have much higher count than other
populations.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin-
converting_enzyme_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin-
converting_enzyme_2)

~~~
Footkerchief
Source for Asians having more? This disagrees:
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202002.0258/v1/download&ved=2ahUKEwiy5LyH__HnAhVPknIEHY0ZD0MQFjAJegQIRhAB&usg=AOvVaw1CuJLaA9eGu0A-EBvZsalR)

------
oefrha
This page only has death rates, not number of cases for each group, so it only
tells half of the story. See Table 1 of the actual paper for complete stats
(source of the stats on the linked page).

[http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9...](http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51#Table1)

~~~
dredmorbius
And screencapped image:

[https://imgur.com/a/Ve5gT3O](https://imgur.com/a/Ve5gT3O) (posted by me)

~~~
AndrewThrowaway
What would explain kids being so immune? ~1000 confined cases under 19 year
old while you have 10 000 50-59 year olds?

~~~
bart_spoon
This is the aspect of the disease that is so interesting to me. With many
diseases, like the flu, the most at risk are the elderly _and_ the very young.
But barely 1% of infections in China are children younger than 10, and 0
deaths.

~~~
AndrewThrowaway
Can it be that smoking plays big part in this? As this also explains gender
statistics.

~~~
oefrha
An early preprint from the team of China’s leading expert Zhong Nanshan tagged
smokers and non-smokers among the 1099 cases they analyzed. 85.4% supposedly
never smoked, with 14.5% of those cases severe. So it’s not like non-smokers
are very much immune.

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v1)

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.06.20020974v1.full.pdf)

~~~
AndrewThrowaway
I would say that it really dismisses smoking as a big factor then.

~~~
dredmorbius
I wouldn't:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22435408](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22435408)

------
dustingetz
The death rate seems to not consider subclinical cases which did not escalate
to the point of getting tested, which is probably the majority of cases

------
Gormisdomai
Isn't the preexisting conditions table incredibly uninformative and heavily
confounded by the fact that a lot of these conditions are far more prevalent
in elderly people?

~~~
epmaybe
I think it helps point out that there is probably an underreporting and
selection bias in the cases of coronavirus that get reported, precisely
because healthy patients with coronavirus probably won't go to the hospital,
and if they do they just treat for a pneumonia without doing coronavirus
testing (what's the indication to make the cost worthwhile?).

~~~
oefrha
> what's the indication to make the cost worthwhile?

That sentence doesn’t quite parse, but in China COVID-19 is treated for free
whereas for regular pneumonia you have to pay whatever out of pocket cost
after insurance coverage.

~~~
epmaybe
I meant that in a healthy patient with good access to health care, who
presumably would not suffer tremendously from COVID-19, and be treated the
same regardless of whether they had that or influenza, why get testing? It's a
bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist. In the US, at least, I
doubt that the cost of care would change whether or not it is COVID-19 vs
influenza pneumonia versus bacterial pneumonia.

------
zebrafish
i know it's passe to rail on the media, but i think the hyperconnectedness of
everyone is causing the amount of panic i'm sensing out there to significantly
outweigh the risks wrt covid-19.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I agree. The Chinese went hysterical when the outbreak was first noticed, and
I heard a lot about it spontaneously when wishing people happy new year.
Hysteria continued right up to the point where... everyone went back to work.

I think the government got unlucky that the outbreak coincided with a major
holiday. And while shutting things down was a good idea in many ways, it also
meant that people were stuck at home with nothing to do but freak out. So
that's what everybody did.

~~~
toron123
There is another possibility that the situation is much, much worse and
Chinese are just telling part of the truth. Look how spreading is much worse
in Korea than what Chinese says happens in China.

~~~
tinza123
They may not be simply compared like that, because of the different measures
taken. China did shutdown the entire country basically, cities with millions
of people won't allow anyone to come in / out, and almost all shops / stores
shut down.

------
billygoat
I really would like to know if smoking is implicated. Are there any
smoker/nonsmoker stats anywhere?

~~~
dredmorbius
Yes, though that's mostly rolled up in the gender statistics. Men are far more
likely smokers than women in China.

Mentioned in TFA.

~~~
Spare_account
Is the F in 'TFA' what I think it is?

~~~
severine
Fine is fine.

~~~
dredmorbius
Sometimes some of the letters are different.

------
ericb
Does anyone have a system for keeping on top of the latest studies and
preprints? I get study links second-hand on social media sites, but I'd like
to watch them closer.

~~~
mattkrause
Most new biology papers (in general, not just for coronavirus) are posted to
bioarXiv.

Bear in mind that these are unreviewed and, given the importance (and
trendiness) many of them have been rushed out. There are also strong career
incentives to make sensational claims that go viral.

Definitely worth reading if you've got some relevant background, but keep your
skeptical hat on too.

~~~
gdy
"that go viral" :)

------
moultano
This is the email I sent my team last night.

 _We should consider working from home._

You may all have seen the news by now. A patient was just diagnosed with
COVID-19 at UC Davis after having no known contact with anyone travelling.
Importantly, they were diagnosed after being intubated already for 7 days. It
is suspected that this is the first known case of public transmission of the
virus in the US. From what we know about the incubation times and progression
of the illness, that means they contracted it sometime between 14-21 days ago.
This is the letter UC Davis sent to their staff.

If the virus has already been in the wild in California for 3 weeks, it seems
likely to me that it has or will reach the bay area, and given the limited
testing capability that has been reported, we may not know until the first
cases end up in the ICU, weeks after exposure.

The death rate for young healthy people is relatively low, around 0.2%. It is
much higher for older people, who it kills in double digit percentages. Still,
20% of the people it infects need intensive hospital care. Many
epidemiologists now suspect that it is likely to become endemic, and that
40-70% of the world's population will contract it.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-
vac...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-
vaccine/607000/)

So what can we do?

The most important thing to keep the death rate low is to reduce the burden on
the hospital system so that they don't end up with more cases needing critical
care than they can handle. And the most important thing for reducing the
burden on hospitals is to slow the spread of the virus, so that even if it
ends up infecting all of us, it doesn't infect all of us at once.

We're fortunate enough that aside from impromptu collaboration and
whiteboarding, all of our concrete tasks can be done at home. Most workers
will not be in this situation, and will have to come to work to keep the
economy running. For those of you familiar with random graph theory, the
average number of edges in a graph has an exponential effect on its diameter,
and so the best thing we can do is to avoid as much contact as we can.
[https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~novozhil/Teaching/767%20Data/ch...](https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~novozhil/Teaching/767%20Data/chapter_3.pdf)

For people coming to the office, the WHO has a document on getting your
workplace ready for COVID-19 that I'd encourage you to read and internalize.
[https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/coronaviruse/getting...](https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/coronaviruse/getting-workplace-ready-for-covid-19.pdf)

I'm already conveniently WFH with a cold, which I hope is just a cold, but I
think we should consider making this the norm, at least until we have more
clarity on what the situation is.

~~~
bilekas
> I'm already conveniently WFH with a cold, which I hope is just a cold.

I would be really interested in getting some take-home test packages that
could be done for situations like these.

It would be irresponsible to go to a doctors office where elderly people could
become infected.

Does anyone know if they exist ?!

~~~
sciinfo
I read that South Korea is developing them and it's close to ready. They
probably need them for their own people first though.

It's a huge opportunity for a startup/company to create a home test kit for
COVID-19. Massive global market for the product and growing exponentially.

Doing well & doing good at the same time.

~~~
bilekas
> It's a huge opportunity for a startup/company to create a home test kit for
> COVID-19. Massive global market for the product and growing exponentially.

If someone has a list of materials thatwould be required to pull these
affordable tests something could be put together for sure.

the worrying thing is to keep the costs down, one would think a lot of those
materials and components would need to come from Chine to be cost effective..
The tangled web.

Edit: the problem wil step from China's supply chain being slowed down.

------
checker659
I wish there was statistics available on mortality for people taking
immunosuppressants (secondary immunosuppression).

~~~
blueant
Very interesting point, although this population should be very small (people
with transplants or treating rheumatic deseases with biologicals).

------
dredmorbius
A related item that's been languishing in HN's submissions queue: "Mapping
Coronavirus, Responsibly"

[https://www.esri.com/arcgis-
blog/products/product/mapping/ma...](https://www.esri.com/arcgis-
blog/products/product/mapping/mapping-coronavirus-responsibly/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22427334](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22427334)

This looks at the geographic distribution of COVID-19, and ways of accurately
(and non-emotionally) conveying that information. Existing infographics have
tended to hide information as much as they reveal it.

------
jxramos
This is a really great format. I particularly appreciate the proactive
interpretative pitfall warning. Would that all publications be so upfront.

> The percentage shown below does NOT represent in any way the

------
Fnoord
Zero infants or children between 0-9 have died. The article mentions:

> In general, relatively few cases are seen among children.

How come? My expectation would be something akin to an elderly range.

------
killface
I'm curious about the dramatically increased mortality rate with diabetes.
Given America's situation, especially with insulin prices at a perverse high,
that could be catastrophic.

------
eecc
People, if you haven’t yet go get the seasonal flu vaccine. Reduces burden on
strained ops and your risk of getting double tapped

~~~
LandR
Isn't this something you can only get if you are in at risk group? I can't go
to my doctor and just get a flu shot, I don't think?

~~~
ghaff
In the US, you don't even have to go to your doctor. Pretty much any in-
pharmacy clinic will give you a shot as a walk-in and it's covered 100% by
most insurance.

(There's a special version you get if you're in a risk group but most people
over a certain age can get the standard one.)

~~~
gizmo686
Possibly more than 100% covered. My local CVS gives a nominal discount ($5)
when you get a flu vaccine.

------
thanatropism
I expected something disaggregate. This would make a great alternative to
titanic.csv to teach an intro class.

------
dannyw
How much can we trust the data coming out of China?

~~~
mytailorisrich
They might be 'massaging' the numbers, or maybe they aren't, but considering
the importance of the issue for China and the world, and how many eyes are
watching, their interest is still to report factual trends and overall
situation. At this point they cannot afford to claim that everything is fine
if it isn't.

I'm more worried about Iran than China.

~~~
microcolonel
> _their interest is still to report factual trends and overall situation_

Unfortunately it isn't. They are trying to put people back to work and reopen
trade because of the damage it is doing to their economy, and massaging the
numbers is one crucial element of making that happen.

~~~
mytailorisrich
This is FUD.

They are not in a vacuum. Business and travel will resume only if the
situation is _demonstrably_ resolved, or close to.

They cannot afford to fake it and re-open factories and lift quarantines just
for mass contamination to occur, which would be very public and screw them
internationally for good.

Edit: Everyone, from all impacted countries say that they are still open for
business because they don't want everything to stop and people to be spooked.
The country is not all under quarantine. That has nothing to do with faking
numbers.

~~~
microcolonel
Dude, they are literally releasing videos from officials telling some
businesspeople that they're still open for business. Don't shoot the
messenger, I _know_ it's a dumb idea, but how surprised can you be that the
CCP is trying to do something dumb after all the dumb things they've done?

Maybe instead of declaring something "FUD", which to me sounds like you're
saying I'm here in bad faith, consider that I meant what I said.

~~~
qzx_pierri
You can’t get this upset when you haven’t posted any sources for your claims.
I believe what you’re saying, but not everyone will give you the benefit of
the doubt.

------
rkachowski
what css artifact is causing the last "e" in "Rate" to be consistently out of
the bold formatting?

~~~
jfk13
Not CSS's fault, it's just how the document is marked-up:

    
    
        <p>*<strong>Death Rat</strong>e = (number of deaths / number of cases) ...
    

The fact that it happens consistently is probably a result of copy-and-paste
(or equivalently, it's wrong in a report-generating template of some kind that
produced each section).

~~~
downerending
Looks like a WYSIWYG wreck.

------
golergka
So, it seems as if smoking actually prevents infection, or something along the
lines of it?

------
JetBen
Such a shame we can't trust anything the Chinese gov't says. These stats are
likely all bogus.

------
qwerty456127
Given 0.2% chance to die I see no reason to care, I probably have higher
chances to die in a car accident on any given day. Even if I were 80 years old
I still would see no reason to worry about the 14.8% chance to die as I would
probably have comparable chances to get a hear attack and die on any given day
anyway.

------
adeptus
We need real data, not theories. Hopefully we'll get it soon.

~~~
ajross
This article literally is data.

~~~
JshWright
It's incomplete data, that is being combined in ways to give certain
impressions, that aren't necessarily backed by actual medical science.

~~~
ajross
Gah, the data in this article _is literally medical science_. It's reporting
on a paper from the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology, which it even links you
to directly.

Now, maybe this science is wrong. If you want to make that argument, though,
you need to make it with evidence. You don't get to dismiss it like that
without doing your own science.

~~~
JshWright
The way the data is sliced and diced is not necessarily meaningful. Looks at
the mortality rates based on those simple categories can paint a misleading
picture.

------
yogthos
Imagine if people would get as excited about actual problems like global
warming and the unfolding mass extinction as they do about a new mild flu.

~~~
dharma1
Timescale, and immediacy of the threat. Humans are not good at long timescale
thinking.

BTW I don't think these things need to be mutually exclusive. We should take
action against all kinds of threats

~~~
yogthos
Obviously we should take action against all kinds of threats. My point is that
the reaction to this virus is completely disproportional to the level of the
threat. Meanwhile, lack of reaction to an actual existential threat we're
facing in the near future is utterly terrifying.

------
tarkin2
It's symptoms are pneumonia-like and it mainly kills the elderly. Is this is a
new strain of pneumonia? If so, this seems like an overreaction?

Edit:

Not sure what the downvotes are about. I asked a question. So you can't fight
it with drugs, it's highly contagious, hard to initially detect, its long-term
effects are unknown, most have recovered and it's largely fatal to the elderly
or those with existing conditions.

~~~
adeptus
The mortality rate may seem very low, but the symptoms are far more severe.
When you get the flu it's rare you get pneumonia, not so much with this virus.
The biggest problem is that it spreads without symptoms. That is, you can be
infected & contagious for days (some Dr's suspect up to 3 weeks) and not have
a clue because you seem perfectly healthy. So this has the potential to spread
like wild fire. Further, 2 days ago some numbers out of China stated that up
to 14% of previously infected became infected again. Lastly, a recent report
also mentioned that detections in hospital were only able to detect 45% of the
cases on the first try. So many are given clean bill of health and go on to
infect many more.

Watch Italy and South Korea carefully, this thing is about to spread like
crazy, even if mortality rates are negligible for young and healthy.

Lastly, SARs supposedly left some people with lung and brain lesions, it is
unknown what the long term effects of this one will be.

~~~
bart_spoon
> Further, 2 days ago some numbers out of China stated that up to 14% of
> previously infected became infected again.

The numbers weren't that 14% became infected again. They were that 14% were
found to still have the virus after being declared recovered. Many are
speculating this doesn't mean reinfection, but could be an indicator that the
tests have a higher false-negative rate than previously believed, or that
people's bodies purge the virus in spurts as recovery takes place.

~~~
alexhektor
yeah, I couldn't find a source for this either. There are a few cases
apparently, and there's still a lot about the virus that is unknown, but it
doesn't look to be that high.. it could also be false-negatives that might
explain this.., but it could theoretically also be that the virus is "bi-
phasic", "meaning the disease appears to go away before recurring."

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-
japan/japane...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-
japan/japanese-woman-confirmed-as-coronavirus-case-for-second-time-weeks-
after-initial-recovery-idUSKCN20L0BI)

------
toptal
So it’s just a coincidence that Dr. Li Wenliang, who was 34, died and he only
had a 0.2% chance of dying? I find this too much of a coincidence. There is no
way these numbers can be correct.

~~~
emiliobumachar
There's reporting bias. Would you have heard of him if he had survived?

~~~
mr-ron
He was in the news well before he died:

[https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001359040/police-
ar...](https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001359040/police-arrest-
doctor-who-predicted-coronavirus)

------
Iv
Ok, time for a rant.

If you looked at that table and went like "Oh, just 0.2% for me, great! No
need to worry!" you are a terrible person.

Even just at 0.2%, a billion people infected would result in more casualties
than most recent conflicts.

Eradicating diseases is possibly the most noble, the most obviously good
behavior that humans can have. And here we have the opposite, people spreading
it because of carelessness, because it is likely to not impact them too much,
because their holiday plans are too important.

Damn.

And damned Hollywood for making people think that an epidemic has to kill a
high percentage to be deadly.

I am less afraid of hearing of an Ebola outbreak than about a new strain of
seasonal virus that did not have any opportunities to combine with others yet.

~~~
henriquemaia
I disagree. you're not a terrible person for thinking that. There's only so
much you can do, and the disease and the deaths it leaves in its wake is
totally out of the reach of your intention or actions.

Worrying about something like that does not award you good person points.
Actually, contributing to the general panic is far worse in terms of your real
impact on what's going on. So, in this sense, you may be an actually worse
person to think like you're proposing.

