re: OT: Corona Panic 2020

At the moment I think COVID-19 probably has a slightly higher mortality rate than the flu even with the estimates the CDC uses for the flu. However, I don't think it's necessarily more deadly than the flu. Most people have flu antibodies for whatever flu is going around because they've either been vaccinated or had it before. With all that, people in the US still die by the tens of thousands every year from it. COVID-19 is still new enough that no one had antibodies this time around. People with weakened immune systems that would normally be the target population for a vaccine can't identify the virus and make antibodies fast enough to stop viral replication effectively so they die. I would imagine after a vaccine is available this will be a pretty easy virus to fight off.