WHAT year would this rate-of-mortality bring us back to (insofar as 'catching' a life threatening disease "back then"):
A. 1950
B. 1900
C. 1860
D. 1776?
It's not 4%. You get 4% when you divide the number of deaths by the number of cases. The number of cases includes those who got better, those who died, AND THOSE WHO ARE STILL SICK and who may get better or die. If you go by final disposition ( deaths / (deaths + got_better) ), the worldwide avg death rate is closer to 9%
The deaths-vs-recoveries ratio is lowest in China ( 64 vs 1088 ). In Hong Kong it's 47 vs 229 (for a death rate of 17%), and in Canada it's 13 vs 27 ( 33%). I'm suspicious of the China figures.
4% fatality means that a family of 5 has a 18% chance that one of the members will die.
4% fatality means that a residential block with 70 people on it has a 94% chance that at least one person will die.
The only question is how contagious it is. I can't seem to find a straight answer to that.
5 posted on 04/14/2003 5:58 PM PDT by TheLooseThread
WRONG!...The worst pandemic of the 20th century was the 1917/18 Spanish flu. It infected about 2 Billion people world wide and took the lives of over 30 million people between the ages of 20 and 40 years.
This flu caused the worst pandemic recorded to this date and this takes into account he "Black Plague" pandemic. Just a note here if you please: The 1918 pandemic had a 1.5% fatality rate. Now you do the math and tell me how and why a 4% fatality rate is nothing to worry about if you please.
If the same number of people are exposed and contract the disease, (2 billion people), at the rate of 4% fatalities there will be 80 million deaths and this will most certainly be a record for the world as we know it so get prepared.
GOD Bless,
RAWGUY