The markets have been in a tailspin this week due to coronavirus and Eumaeus is a bit glum. On the other hand, is the apocalypse really upon us?
We did some analyis based on this page. The table below shows diagnosed cases versus death versus recovery (‘existing’ cases is simply cases minus death and recovery), for the cities in the Hubei province. The fatality rate is deaths divided by deaths+recoveries, which some experts say is the best estimate of the expected fatality rate, given that many diagnosed cases have not been resolved.
That looks kind of alarming, but then consider the populations of those cities, and work out cases as a percentage of population. Cases in Wuhan, the ‘worst affected city’ are 0.435% of population. When we sort by this percentage, we get tiny numbers.
Certainly tiny in comparison to the breathless press coverage. Huanggang (0.047% cases per population at 26 February), was one of the ‘hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak’, and was facing a ‘severe virus situation’ according to this report on 11 February.
| City | Existing | Cases | Death | Recovery | D/(R+D) | Population | Cases/Pop |
| Wuhan | 32392 | 47824 | 2104 | 13328 | 13.6% | 11,000,000 | 0.435% |
| Ezhou | 734 | 1389 | 42 | 613 | 6.4% | 1,048,668 | 0.132% |
| Xiangyang | 443 | 1175 | 31 | 701 | 4.2% | 904,957 | 0.130% |
| Xiaogan | 1781 | 3516 | 113 | 1622 | 6.5% | 4,814,542 | 0.073% |
| Suizhou | 577 | 1307 | 37 | 693 | 5.1% | 2,580,000 | 0.051% |
| Xiantao | 200 | 575 | 19 | 356 | 5.1% | 1,175,000 | 0.049% |
| Huanggang | 842 | 2904 | 110 | 1952 | 5.3% | 6,162,069 | 0.047% |
| Enshi | 83 | 251 | 4 | 164 | 2.4% | 749,574 | 0.033% |
| Jingmen | 378 | 923 | 37 | 508 | 6.8% | 3,023,000 | 0.031% |
| Xianning | 209 | 836 | 11 | 616 | 1.8% | 2,772,000 | 0.030% |
| Tianmen | 176 | 496 | 13 | 307 | 4.1% | 1,731,000 | 0.029% |
| Jingzhou | 667 | 1579 | 45 | 867 | 4.9% | 5,692,000 | 0.028% |
| Yichang | 503 | 929 | 30 | 396 | 7.0% | 4,060,000 | 0.023% |
| Shiyan | 296 | 671 | 3 | 372 | 0.8% | 3,340,841 | 0.020% |
| Qianjiang | 91 | 197 | 9 | 97 | 8.5% | 1,000,000 | 0.020% |
Table: cities affected in Hubei province, as of 26 Feb 2020
If the coronavirus is as infectious and the situation as apocalyptic as the reports suggest, why hasn’t the entire city of Wuhan been infected and why haven’t more than a million people died?
More tomorrow.