Originally Posted by
STS-134
I would add to this:
- I've been in a mainland China hospital (wife's grandfather was in the hospital when I was there last time and we went to visit him). Not the worst place in the world BUT, just from brief observations, I'd rather be treated in a US hospital if I had a choice about the matter, and not just because of the language/communication issue. If my wife's family wasn't with me, it's definitely NOT a place I'd want to be treated if I'm having trouble communicating with the doctors on a good day when I'm feeling well. And I'm not sure what the deal is with having so many windows open, since that's generally not something you want to do in a hospital setting where you want an extremely sterile environment.
Seconded. I've set foot in a few Chinese hospitals (although never as a patient), I'm not impressed. My wife speaks Chinese at a native level and has actually worked in a hospital there--no language issue but that wouldn't avoid the inadequate medical system.
- We don't really know the death rate of 2019-nCoV. There exists a significant latent period, and after that, someone generally goes to the hospital when he/she starts showing symptoms. Official numbers as of this writing are 4690 infections, 106 deaths, and 79 recoveries. But this DOES NOT mean that the death rate is 106/4690. Some of those 4690 have recovered, 106 have died, but even more may recover or may die. We will not really know until their condition resolves one way or the other, and therefore cannot draw any conclusions from those cases. I suspect that more people than 79 may have recovered, but there isn't as much priority on counting recoveries at this point as there is on counting number of infections and deaths, but in any case, the information available is incomplete.
So far the death rate exceeds the recovery rate.