At first we only identified extreme cases and we had these terrifying reported fatality rates.
Then we identify more and more mild or asymptomatic cases and the rates drop and drop.
We’ve already seen how CFR was reported as 3 or 4%. Then on the cruise ship full of people over 60 it’s 0.7%. If there are lots of mild or asymptomatic cases it will likely be much lower.
H1N1 was identified as having a scary 0.4% CFR early on and was later found to be much lower, but we didn’t know until after the fact.
In the end it may have killed over half a million people in 2009 - but for some reason people barely noticed. (Tangent: I wonder if it’s partly the changing media landscape from 2009 to 2020.)
At first we only identified extreme cases and we had these terrifying reported fatality rates.
Then we identify more and more mild or asymptomatic cases and the rates drop and drop.
We’ve already seen how CFR was reported as 3 or 4%. Then on the cruise ship full of people over 60 it’s 0.7%. If there are lots of mild or asymptomatic cases it will likely be much lower.
H1N1 was identified as having a scary 0.4% CFR early on and was later found to be much lower, but we didn’t know until after the fact.
An example report from 2009:
https://www.who.int/immunization/sage/1.Briand_epi_7th_July_...
In the end it may have killed over half a million people in 2009 - but for some reason people barely noticed. (Tangent: I wonder if it’s partly the changing media landscape from 2009 to 2020.)