[heartofgold]

You are citing case fatality rate for MERS and SARS, but not the flu (which is typically 0.1%), and yet in any given year the flu has killed many more people than MERS or SARS. Why? Because millions get the flu whereas MERS and SARS were contained.

Now consider that COVID-19 is much more contagious than the flu and it has a significantly higher case fatality rate than the flu.

Furthermore, people can and do protect themselves against the flu with a vaccine. There is no vaccine for COVID-19. And still further, no one is immune because the disease is new to humans.

So yes, while covid-19 has a 98% survival rate, a widespread outbreak could kill hundreds of thousands of people.

[dfsegoat]

This was enlightening and has let me revise my original position. Thanks