The regular flu is 0.1%. The 1918 pandemic had a mortality rate of 2%, and killed 50 million people.

The Spanish flu infected about 500 million people and killed about 50 million according to most estimations. That's a death rate of 10%.

It should also be said that the 1% rate for COVID-19 is probably too high because a lot of cases appear to be hardly symptomatic. The cruise ship had 3 deaths up until now, all over the age of 80.

In 1918 the world population was 1.8B. If every single person got infected, and the mortality rate was 2%, then that's 36M.

Something wrong with your numbers.

From wikipedia:

> It infected 500 million people around the world,[2] or about 27% of the then world population of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion, including people on isolated Pacific islands and in the Arctic. The death toll is estimated to have been 40 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million

Ok, if it infected 27% of 1.9 billion, that’s 500M people infected.

50-100M of those die, for a fatality rate of at 10 to 20%, not the 2% referenced in OP.

You're nitpicking for no reason; they're close approximations. maybe it was 2.1% or 1.9% maybe it was 40 million or 60 -- record keeping 1918 globally may not have been exactly computer-perfect. There was a war being recovered from, the world was still poor, and medical science inexact.

The GP's point stands, I think.

It’s not 1.9% or 2.1%, the fatality rate would have to be 10% for those numbers to work.

Hypothesis: some were infected, survived, then reinfecterd and died.

That is very high, both compared to influenza and to what our health care system is able to handle.

And when the case load is higher than what the health care system is able to handle, mortality jumps to 2% or higher.

Also, caseload straining the healthcare system boosts mortality for other conditions.

5% to 8%? https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fb7pjm/risk_of_dea...

>>um mortality rate is something like 1% ... hardly high

Mortality is 100%...for the person that dies from it. And that 1% rate is so far, I hope we don't see what happens if 46 million people in USA get it and try going to the hospital.

The Tail at Scale