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A comment on WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency. Parent comment

Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by Double_a_92 on Friday January 31, 2020 @02:47AM (#22199889)
> deaths / (deaths + recoveries)

How does that produce a meaningful number? If you got 1000s of infected people, and 1 dies... The formula would be 1 / (1 + 0) = 100%. What does that mean?

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by acqq on Friday January 31, 2020 @04:40AM (#22200334)
You simply have to have the known numbers of confirmed dead and recovered patients.

The way you used it "1 / (1 + 0) = 100%" means just "the knowledge used in the formula is that one patient died, zero recovered." In that case, yes, the fatality rate is "everybody dies." But using the sample of 1 is of course not meaningful for any statistics, not only for that formula.

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by tremon on Friday January 31, 2020 @06:11AM (#22200747)
It means that nobody has succesfully recovered following a confirmed infection, which is exactly what your data suggests.
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