Peacedog wrote:For a depressing, but relevant, point of reference the Spanish Flu of 1918 killed roughly 3-6% of those infected, however it ultimately infected roughly 1/3rd of the world's population at the time. And that was considered a pandemic.
I think one of the worrying factors of the coronavirus is the potential ease of transmission. Ultimately how many people are infected will drive the end view of what is happening. SARS, for whatever reason, did not appear to infect that many people or simply was more difficult to transmit limiting it's impact.
The general lack of transparency inherent to the Chinese government combined with what appears to the outside world as draconian measures for containment purposes is driving a lot of the current level of concern outside of the Middle Kingdom.
But the Spanish flu was around a little over a hundred years ago, can we compare hygiene and sanitary and medicine situations back then with todays,