The current overall death rate is estimated at approx. 1%, with a fairly large number of cases.
It has spread much further and faster than SARS or MERS, but is far less dangerous than either.
Which makes sense—a disease which incapacitates or kills in a high percentage of cases is unlikely to spread as fast as one which has mild symptoms in most infected people.
It now appears almost certain to become endemic. The real goal is to slow down the spread sufficiently to develop vaccines before this happens.
That worked for bird flu and swine flu. It remains to be seen for Covid19
It would be useful to compare it to the previous pandemic possibilities: SARS, swine flu, avian flu.
People correctly try to reason by analogy—but it is important to find the differences.
Some data from the BBC comparing them: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51235105
The current overall death rate is estimated at approx. 1%, with a fairly large number of cases.
It has spread much further and faster than SARS or MERS, but is far less dangerous than either.
Which makes sense—a disease which incapacitates or kills in a high percentage of cases is unlikely to spread as fast as one which has mild symptoms in most infected people.
It now appears almost certain to become endemic. The real goal is to slow down the spread sufficiently to develop vaccines before this happens.
That worked for bird flu and swine flu. It remains to be seen for Covid19