Originally Posted by
STS-134
So if we assume that this virus has a case fatality rate of 2%, the chance that it would kill 4 people in the same family like that (assuming that each case is independent) is (0.02)^4 or 1 in 6.25 million. The interesting thing is that the guy's wife (whom I'm assuming is not related to him by blood) is in serious condition but the article doesn't mention that she died. Now I would think that either the strain that infected them was a lot more serious than others, it's pure 1/6.25M coincidence, or perhaps there's some genetic susceptibility to this?
Way OT but your calculation assumes even distribution of odds, which is flawed. Risk of death in older people much higher, let's say both parents over 80, in which case 15% each. And the chap himself around 1%. So the odds would be 0.15x0.15x0.01, which is about 1/4000 of all three dieing. Given it's likely more than 100k people have the infeciton in Wuhan, then it doesn't appear so unlikely after all...
Also, they failed to receive medical attention, which would actually increase those odds of death substantially...
tb