[merrin]

Death rate seems kind of wimpy for a bioweapon.

[Domestic Church]

WE don't know the actual death rate yet. It's at least 3.7-4.0. That's worse than the 1918 flu.

[GREY GHOSTt]

Just wait until all of the respirators are busy! This will
raise the death toll!

[VMI70]

Because of the length of time the illness runs its' course and its' serious nature, it could overwhelm our medical treatment capacity in a very short time. That makes it as good as a bioweapon.

It's like combat. It is far better to seriously wound the opposing soldier than to kill him. If he's wounded, it takes someone in the field to administer first aid, 2-4 people to get him to an ambulance or a helicopter, both of them are then in harms way. If you wound enough of the enemy, it will overwhelm the hospital resources, etc, etc.

This could be a modern day version of the 1918-19 flu epidemic. Keep a close eye on this. It has the potential to be a problem much more serious than is currently presented.

[Walkingfeather]

Not the infection rate. If you surrive you basically will have no lung compacity. That means you lie in bed on a resperator.

[GovernmentShrinker]

It does indeed, and I haven't seen any info describing WHO is dying from this thing. 54 of 1550 infected have ides -- are these mainly the very elderly, the very young, those with other serious health problems? With those stats, I'm guessing that this disease doesn't pose a serious threat to otherwise strong healthy people, but I'd sure like to see some hard info.

[Centurion2000]

Death rate seems kind of wimpy for a bioweapon.

It's still doing better than Spanish Flu .... I wonder how far this will advance in the next 6 months.

[Future Snake Eater]

Death rate seems kind of wimpy for a bioweapon.

That's a good point.

[ladyjane]

Death rate seems kind of wimpy for a bioweapon.

Too early to draw that conclusion. The death rate statistic is misleading. Some of the people who are infected are going to die from it. They just haven't died yet.