[arcticbull]

> Only 5-20% of the population gets the flu each year.

Only 20% of America is 70,000,000 people. That's staggering. The economic impact of the flu is enormous.

> I've seen most people assuming a mortality around 1%, which is not that far off from these results. In Italy, 1% may well be correct, given how the healthcare system was overwhelmed there.

It may be 1% in Italy because the population of Lombardy was overwhelmingly old, and overwhelmingly sick. The average age of death in Italy was 80.5 and the average number of underlying medical conditions was three.

[amadvance]

> may be 1% in Italy because the population of Lombardy was overwhelmingly old

Multiple official sources in Italy estimate that the real number of infected is 10 times the reported one. This explains the high dead rate.

[DiogenesKynikos]

> Only 20% of America is 70,000,000 people. That's staggering.

So imagine 4x as many people getting infected with a virus that is many times as lethal.

> It may be 1% in Italy because the population of Lombardy was overwhelmingly old, and overwhelmingly sick.

And the US has other problems, such as obesity. But the mortality will be much higher wherever the virus overwhelms healthcare systems. As we've seen, that can happen very quickly.

[arcticbull]

If we, again, assume that 15% of the US has already had it (as in Gangelt), and that herd immunity kicks in at 60-70%, that means we'd expect to see another 45-55% of the population -- 147-179 million cases. If we actually isolate the vulnerable, basically nobody would die.

[DiogenesKynikos]

That would be an incorrect assumption. The Gangelt study is about one small town in Germany where there was a known superspreading event at the Carnival festival.

If 15% of the US had already been infected, then based on the Gangelt study, there would be 200 thousand deaths, and millions hospitalized with severe illness.

You're completely misreading the Gangelt study.