Someone always says this.

And yet here we are with a virus that has an r0 much higher than flu, and is ~10 times more lethal.

That the two things are correlated in certain modeling scenarios does not mean you can't end up something that both spreads and kills.

Influenza R0 has varied historically between 0.9 and 2.8 [0], where covid-19 is typically quoted as having an R0 around 2.3-2.5. It’s not substantially different in that regard.

Lethality estimates also suffer from being based on bad data. “Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes.” [1]. For that reason, the CFR in the US at least has been around 1%, but the IFR could actually be significantly lower.

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19545404/ [1]: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-a...

Otoh, the epidemic in the US is likely growing exponentially, and that encourages the current CFR to underestimate the actual CFR as new cases haven't had time to die.

In terms of estimating the IFR, it's hard; estimates are about 0.7, much higher than flu.

Your link says 'mean R0 1.3: range 0.9 to 2.1'.

Compared to the mean R0 of flu, this disease spreads substantially more and is more lethal, hence is a good counterpoint to the flawed argument of the post that I was replying to.

Stop comparing this to the seasonal flu, it's also quite likely that 3-4 years down the line when population wide antibody studies would be completed the CFR/IFR will drop by a factor of 10.

What's the possibility of creating such a virus in a lab?

Fairly low while we can snip a few genes here and there the technology isn’t there.

When it will be it can also be used to easily create a cure if you can assemble viruses like legos it would be also incredibly easy to create inhibitors and anti bodies with the same technology.

This is also what we are doing atm basically playing a huge game of “Perfection” by trying to find anything that would fit one of the “holes” on the virus, our cells or those which open up during its assembly process like its viral protease.

It may just be my better understanding of bacteria, but I think it'd be significantly easier to engineer bacteria as a bioweapon where, largely, you are the one doing the spreading, via something like a crop duster.

I've heard a firsthand account from a guy who worked at Vector [0], that they had difficulty controlling viruses [1]. Accidental releases of weaponized bacteria also happened [2], but in that case they could prophylactically treat with antibiotics. That said, this was done using 1970's-1980's technology. I'm sure there's some more sophisticate bioweapons that are possible now. Maybe viruses are a more reasonable chassis.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_prog...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_smallpox_incident

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

bacteria are able to survive outside a host body, and exploit a wide range of resource compared to virus.

virus is good for control in the case of accidents such as a biowar implement crashes somehow and spills virus, the environment will destroy it quickly, the cleanup is simple compared to a bacterial agent, eg anthrax in spore form lasts many years-->

I fear that now that we have witnessed the economic turmoil it can inflict on any community where this virus is released, there are entities out there who have taken notice and will explore this as a means to future warfare.

I believe it's the opposite now.

This virus has shown the widespread economic impact and unpredictability that the uncontrolled spread of a virus can unleash on the world.

After this, I'm sure no superpower will want to take a chance releasing a weaponized pathogen: it might just come bite them back in the ass.