What is really concerning me is that it would appear the outbreak is only a 4-6 weeks old and yet it would appear there is already death rates figuring in the hundreds. If you assume that the period of time for the influenza virus takes is approximately 7-10 days or possibly 14 days before symptoms are servere enough for people to present for medical treatment. (A newly wed couple here in Scotland returned from Mexico on their honeymoon and it was five days to a week before becoming symptomatic, in which they had returned to their jobs over that period, where they could have unknowningly infected dozens of others, who will present their symptoms in the next week or so).

If you then take into account the geometric rate of person to person infection etc, then the 200 deaths as reported in some media circles with possibly 1000 infections giving a mortality rate of possibly double digit percentages, then this is truely frightning especially considering the time constant of the expansion of deaths. i.e it may well take 2-3 weeks before the initial infection of the virus to death.

It may well be the case that in the next 1-2 weeks the death rates could by in the thousands across most of the globe and tens of thousands by the end of May.