Originally Posted by
nolimitholdem
I like a good doomsday scenario as much as the next guy, but a virus with the CFR you describe wouldn't be that effective at spreading as it would kill its host too fast.
Case fatality rate is not a measure of how fast a virus kills, but of how many it kills.
In the first decades of AIDS, before effective treatments were developed, the CFR was 100%, with a significant symptom free infectious period. The only thing that saved us was that it was slow, and in communities where it was not slow (gay men, sub saharan Africa), it has indeed been a near doomsday scenario.
The One nightmare scenario is an easily transmitted respiratory disease with a significant symptom free infectious period (days is long enough, weeks or months far worse), which then kills most or all cases.
It doesn't really matter how quickly it kills once it has revealed itself, just that it spreads well while it is undetected and it kills lots of people.
Covid 19 spreads well while it is undetected, but appears to have a short symptom free infectious period, making short term isolation a viable preventative measure.
While Covid 19 is relatively harmless to young people, it is very dangerous for older people.
It's most of the way to the nightmare scenario I've described, and it's only luck that it doesn't kill say 20% or 90% of all infected, within say six months...
(How do we know it doesn't?)