Mike Palij wrote: > > Your calculation of a 6% death rate, in this context is actually quite > spectacular, being much higher that the case fatality rate for the > 1918 flu which killed 20-40 million people worldwide. But > your death rate is not a case fatality rate because it is not based > on a standard period of time nor do we have good statistics about > how many people have been been infected.
All granted. But, as you say, since we don't have those figures, we have to make do with what we have. > Given that we don't > really know how many people have been infected, any calculations > that requires this number should be viewed skeptically. > Agreed. Which is why I pointed out that once we know how many people have actually been infected (which is unlikely since many people seem to be having cases so mild that they do not report it or go to hospital, the death rate would be much lower than this. > One of the fears raised by the deaths in Mexico is that so many of them > were young adults and not children and the elderly. Ironically, I deleted a sentence about this that I had written in the original post, but I thought it distracted from the point I was making. There is something interesting in the fact that we consider deaths of adults in their "prime" to be much more horrifying than the deaths of children and the elderly. As with the 1918 flu, this is probably the case because this flu strain overstimululates immune system, so those with stronger immune reactions can be killed by it, but those with weaker immune reactions are rarely killed. > It may be possible that there are a large number of children and elderly who > have died but have not be identified. > Many things are possible. I suspect if large numbers of young children were dying, we would have heard about it. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ���Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second.��� - Phil Kerby, former editor of the /Los Angeles Times/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
