Originally Posted by
beaver341
UK population is 65,000,000 give or take.
4% of that is 2,600,000 who will therefore catch the virus if left unchecked (no quarantining etc)
Mortality rate is 2% which gives a death toll of 52,000 in UK using your figures.
Even if we accept those figures (which I'm not sure I do), in the next 6 months approximately 400,000 people would be expected to die in the UK in the normal course of events. Many of your 52,000 are people who would othewise have been in that 400,000. It's not at all clear to me that the net increase in deaths would be significant. And the benefit to millions of people of strengthened immune systems as a result of overcoming the virus is significant.