A Few Facts about Coronavirus (COVID-19) that may surprise you?

When I first heard about this new virus, I was not all that concerned. I checked it out, and there are over 20,000 deaths in the USA each year from the flu. Could this be any worse? What I did not realize is that these deaths are a result of tens of millions of cases of the flu each year. We still do not have an effective prevention methodology and no cure after over 100 years. The critical factor is that less than one-tenth of one percent of the people that contract the flu virus will die.

The new virus is at least forty times more virulent. Initially, we heard of mortality rates in the 2 -3% range. That was shocking enough, but more recent evidence is much worse. The worldwide mortality rate now stands at about 5%. The rate in the US is only at about 2 ½ %, but it is growing daily as less than 5% of the cases have been deemed recovered. Our mortality rate may not reach the 5% level, but will easily exceed 3%.

Another fact that you will not see in the media is that over 62% of all of the reported cases are in just five (5) countries. The US leads the pack with almost 24%, followed by Italy, Spain, Germany & China. Germany moved into 4^th place in the number of occurrences, just passing China.

Following are the stats as of the end of the day on April 2:

	Date: April 2
	Location	Confirmed	Cases per	Recovered	Deaths	Death	New	Rate of	%
		Cases	1 Mil people			ratio	Cases	Increase	recovered
	Worldwide	1,026,974	145.75	217,433	53,975	5.3%	75,073	7.3%	21.2%
23.9%	United States	245,175	749.57	10,403	6,059	2.5%	28,813	11.8%	4.2%
11.2%	Italy	115,242	1,824.45	18,278	13,915	12.1%	4,668	4.1%	15.9%
10.9%	Spain	112,065	2,261.64	26,743	10,348	9.2%	1,827	1.6%	23.9%
8.3%	Germany	85,269	1,038.13	13,597	1,111	1.3%	7,070	8.3%	15.9%
7.9%	China	81,620	59.43	76,571	3,322	4.1%	31	0.0%	93.8%
62.3%