[Robert DeLong]

That is true only if the actual numbers reported are accurate. I suspect they are not because the Diamond Princess was the perfect petri dish. There were 4000+ crew and passengers, they dined together in dining rooms, they were engaging in lots of socializing, they were contained in a confined space offering little separation for a considerable amount of time, and they had a large population of older people.

Roughly 19%, or 761 people contracted the virus, 81% did not. At least so far. I see that 49 new cases have emerged. The number stood at 712 for weeks. I wonder if these were just not reported or if they caught the virus after being released from quarantine. Interesting development.

10 have died or 1.3% (2 more died since yesterday)

574 have recovered or 75.4% (7 more since yesterday)

177 remain infected or 23.3%

So at the moment the petri dish example has thus far had a death rate of 1.3%, which of course if below the 4%. Will it stay that way? I certainly do not know, but so far very promising.

[cgbg]

Robert:

I buy the 1.3% death rate on one condition—the health care system has to be in excellent shape.

What makes this disease so dangerous is that it can rapidly overwhelm the health care system (northern Italy, for example) and then the death rate skyrockets.

In addition, once the health care system crashes and burns, people start dying of hundreds of conditions that used to be curable...