| Comment | That's 290,000 to 650,000 deaths after mass annual vaccination campaigns, and mostly in places with poor medical infrastructure. We're talking about a more virulent disease that has no vaccine and can seemingly spread without symptoms and having that death rate even with the best medical care.
We simply don't know yet whether it's virulent enough to spread to a full pandemic. If it does, best case is an international campaign to restrict its spread pending a vaccine in 12-18 months, meaning huge economic impacts (i.e. no travel or large gatherings).
Or maybe it's not virulent enough and it'll just peter out with localised management. We just don't know yet.
This isn't fearmongering, this is just the current state of knowledge - an unmanaged pandemic would likely kill in the order of 10 to 100 million people. We should know more fairly soon as we see how fast it does or does not spread within populations such as Scotland with minimal exposure. |
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