between 60-160 million people will die from it within about a year.
That seems high. If you assume that it’s as contagious as the regular flu, and given that every year about 5-15% of people get infected (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Epidemic_and_pandemic_spread), that makes roughly 700 million infected, and given the expected mortality rate in single percents (currently 7% and dropping of all closed cases, estimated 1% in general), we arrive at the 10 million deaths estimate without any containment measures in place. Given the containment measures, the number of infections and deaths is likely to be a fraction of that, likely under a million dead.
The coronavirus spreads a little faster than the flu.
You have some natural immunity to flu even though each season the strain is different. You probably have no immunity against this coronavirus.
We have a reliable vaccine against seasonal flu. We will not have a vaccine or effective treatment for coronavirus for some time.
Seasonal flu is very well characterized and understood. This virus is still under intensive study, and all the numbers I give have uncertainty, which means that it may be worse than our best guess. Long-term effects of catching the virus are unknown.
Also, my estimates from a few days ago were out of date and I did more research in the intervening time and found that the case fatality rate was probably lower than I was previously lead to believe (I did research back in January and then stopped for a while since it was draining to research it).
My current estimate that you can quote me on is that there is a 10% chance of the virus killing more than 50 million people [ETA: Update, I did more research. 5% is now probably my current estimate.]. I used language that did not reflect my probability estimates here as I used the word “plausible” but not in a sense that implied probable.
That seems high. If you assume that it’s as contagious as the regular flu, and given that every year about 5-15% of people get infected (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Epidemic_and_pandemic_spread), that makes roughly 700 million infected, and given the expected mortality rate in single percents (currently 7% and dropping of all closed cases, estimated 1% in general), we arrive at the 10 million deaths estimate without any containment measures in place. Given the containment measures, the number of infections and deaths is likely to be a fraction of that, likely under a million dead.
From this thread,
The coronavirus spreads a little faster than the flu.
You have some natural immunity to flu even though each season the strain is different. You probably have no immunity against this coronavirus.
We have a reliable vaccine against seasonal flu. We will not have a vaccine or effective treatment for coronavirus for some time.
Seasonal flu is very well characterized and understood. This virus is still under intensive study, and all the numbers I give have uncertainty, which means that it may be worse than our best guess. Long-term effects of catching the virus are unknown.
Also, my estimates from a few days ago were out of date and I did more research in the intervening time and found that the case fatality rate was probably lower than I was previously lead to believe (I did research back in January and then stopped for a while since it was draining to research it).
My current estimate that you can quote me on is that there is a 10% chance of the virus killing more than 50 million people [ETA: Update, I did more research. 5% is now probably my current estimate.]. I used language that did not reflect my probability estimates here as I used the word “plausible” but not in a sense that implied probable.
Can’t remember where, but I remember reading that for people in their 20s and 30s, the death rate is only 0.1%.