At least 10% die
As of 25 January, of the 99 patients:
- 57 were still in hospital
- 31 had been discharged
- 11 had died
This does not mean that the death rate from illness is 11%, because some people who are still in hospital may still die and many others have mild symptoms that they do not end up in the hospital.
Market workers
It is believed that live animals sold in the Huanan seafood market are the source of the infection, called 2019-nCoV.
And 49 out of the 99 patients had a direct connection to the market:
- 47 worked there, either as managers or manning the stalls
- two were shoppers who had only popped in
The most affected are middle-aged men
Most of the 99 patients were middle-aged, and their average age was 56 years – 67 of them were men.
However, more recent figures indicate a more homogeneous gender distribution. The Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that 1.2 men had infected 1.0 women.
There are two possible explanations for the difference:
- Men may be more likely to develop a serious illness and need hospital care
- Men, for social or cultural reasons, were more vulnerable to exposure to the virus at the beginning of the epidemic
Dr. Li Chang, at the hospital, said, “The lower exposure of women to viral infections can be attributed to protection from the X chromosome and hormones, which play an important role in immunity.”
And those who were already sick
Most of the 99 had other diseases that may have made them more vulnerable to the virus as a “result of the weaker immune functions of these patients”:
- 40 had a weak heart or damaged blood vessels due to conditions including heart disease, heart failure and stroke
- A further 12 patients had diabetes
