The Corona Virus is still making the news. Since I'd put down my marker on it not being that bad, a followup is in order. We've been talking about ratios here so, let's approach this one from a similar angle.
A "rate" depends on two variables: the amount affected, and the base population. For the mortality rate of a virus, the base population is those infected - we don't care about those who don't get sick in the first place. It turns out that we don't know this particular base population on account that China is an Animal Farm whose leaders rule by lying to everyone. That number can however be inferred - from another ratio: of those who go around meeting and greeting people, the infection rate. For Europeans this is 1/56.
Genetically the virus affects Asian men worst. We should guess about 200,000 are infected in Wuhan. Quite a bit more than the Chinese officials are allowing.
But also it doesn't help that the local (Wuhan) government has put in place measures to reduce the comfort of those afflicted - thereby, suppressing their immune-systems.
This still looks to me like little more than a bad cold... unless you are an Asian man living under a socialist tyranny.
UPDATE 2/8 - or Emperor Xi could be using this scare as cover to whack dissidents and others with low credit-scores. h/t Widespread Pepe at Ace.
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