[heurifk]

We have recent data from Wuhan.

We have old data from 1918.

This is a white swan, not a black one.

More importantly, the mortality, while much higher than flu, it's still relatively low.

Now imagine a virus as contagious as this one, but with 10% mortality over all age groups. That would be unprecedented and probably cause society meltdown.

[a1369209993]

> More importantly, the mortality, while much higher than flu, it's still relatively low.

Anecdote: someone was trying to convice me to panic about Coronavirus because "three hundred and [something] people died just today!"

  $ units
  8 billion / 80yr
  /day

"Actually, three hundred thousand people died today. Probably more, even."

[koyote]

I think a lot of people would be very surprised if you told them how many people die in their country every year.

It's nearly 3 million in the US.

[spaceman_2020]

How do you reckon social media will impact your models? Rumors and information - real or fake - has never been easier to spread in the world (Wuhan's data becomes less relevant here). We've already seen calls for defiance of lockdowns in right wing circles. In my country, old videos are being circulated to spread misinformation about the treatment.

Again, our data for all older epidemics is applicable to the epidemic in isolation. But there is no way to accurately model how the epidemic interacts with people simply because the way people live has changed drastically from past epidemics.