SARS UPDATE: 4288 cases. 251 deaths. Mortality rate of 5.9%.
Seems like ithe mortality rate is increasing but really what has happened is some of the people that had it previously are dying. CDC lists 2032 people as "recovered" leaving 2256 still having the symptoms and still alive. Of these, some will die.
Comparing deaths to (recovered+deaths) you get 251/2283 which is 11%.
The number of cases worldwide has increased by a factor of almost 5 in the past month. This figure ignores China because their statistics are unreliable. If the current one-month infection rate continued, there would be about 20,000 people with SARS a month from now of which maybe 2,000 would die if the mortality rate stayed the same.
Of course, nature never does cooperate with such assumptions.
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