SARS-CoV-1 (2002), MERS (2012+)
"Of the 7 coronaviruses, the former four can cause common cold symptoms, but SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV can lead to severe respiratory syndromes, with about 6.76%, 9.6%, and 35.5% mortality rates, respectively." [0]
We just dodged a bullet because they were regionally-contained and/or had lower transmissibility. But if you were in Asia before and after 2002, you noticed.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7334925/
Edit: And if we want to go to the more-lethal, less-transmissible end of the spectrum (so roughly equivalent in terms of public health risk), the regularly recurring Ebola outbreaks in Africa. Most recently the 2013-2016 campaign.
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... (Among RT-PCR-confirmed cases tested by Oct 1, 2020, 342 (2·4%; 95% CI 2·2–2·6) of 14 237 died within 30 days of their positive test. Mortality was 0·4% (95% CI 0·3–0·6) at ages 0–39 years, 2·0% (1·7–2·3) at ages 40–64 years, 7·5% (6·4–8·7) at ages 65–79 years, and 15·4% (11·6–19·6) in those aged 80 years or older (figure 4))
[2] https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n579 (The absolute risk of death in this group of community identified participants, however, remains relatively low, increasing from 2.5 to 4.1 deaths per 1000 cases.)
[3] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-...
The study I cited was (broadly) CFR. That Lancet study is (broadly) IFR. If you proactively surveillance test 13.5% of Madurai's population, you're going to get a different class of people in your denominator, and your calculated mortality is going to decrease.
The BMJ study is probably the most broadly compatible, which leaves us at 2.5% (non-Delta) or 4.1% (Delta), which appears to be case fatality rate?
If we want to argue apples:apples, we should use EMR-based studies that attempt to calculate IFR, as at least they're reasoning with the same population composition.
This [0] has SARS-CoV-2 at somewhere between 0.26% and 0.83% IFR. Which for context, is compared to respiratory flu at 0.0088% (estimated total population EMR due to flu) [1]. So we'd expect about 29.5x as many people to die from SARS-CoV-2 (using the high end estimate of flu and the low end estimate of SARS-CoV-2, to generate the lowest possible multiple). If you want to, you can probably dig European numbers out of this excess mortality calculation [2], although that's all-cause mortality, with no attempt to isolate cause.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7543961/
Isn't this disregarding (or generalizing) the fact that age plays a significant role with SARS-CoV-2? Those numbers are vastly different between, say, teenagers and 60+ year olds.
I don't see many 60+ running around protesting. Mostly it's the 0.01% IFR crowd.
For some perspective, Chicken Pox killed roughly 100 Americans every year and that vaccine was mandated in effectively all schools and universities across the country.
1. COVID