What would the COVID Pandemic have looked like if COVID-19 was ten times more deadlier?

[ThePoarter]

So let's say all other factors remain the same for COVID-19 (i.e. asymptomatic for two weeks, a virus that spreads via coughing or etc) virus that came out of Wuhan, China in December 2019.

However there is one difference here. Instead of a mortality rate of 2.15% it now has a mortality rate of 21.5% which only makes it slightly better than Hantavirus, Dengue Fever or Smallpox (The latter as a mortality rate of 30-35%).

If all else remained the same how would things have played out around the world in the past year and a half?

 

[Artos]

Covid-19 has infected 219M people world wide and killed 4.55M people.

If Covid-19 was 10x deadlier there would be 2,19Billion people infected and 470,850,000 Death.


Yeah we are doomed...

 

[Morphile]

If Covid-19 was 10x deadlier there would be 2,19Billion people infected and 470,850,000 Death.

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No, it'd be 219m people infected in the worst case scenario with 45.5 million deaths, by your own numbers. The suggestion is changing the mortality rate, with the other factors including infection staying the same, so it could spread no more than what has actually happened, and the far more extreme response and higher hospitalization rate can only reduce the cases.

With regard to answering the hypothetical, there'd be no room for anywhere near as much political shenanigans when you actually have people dying in the streets in serious numbers.

We could paradoxically end up with a lower final death total because it didn't take all that long to figure out a number of the underlying mechanisms of its lethality and egress into the body, so with it actually being a potential civilizational threat we'd see a lot more work into figuring out effective treatment of infections rather than so many sources pushing only the vaccine as the end of lockdown measures.

Assuming the variants manage to emerge at the same time despite more complete lockdowns, likely including telling the Chinese to fuck right the hell off for New Years 2020, and have the same proportional shift, then their lower lethality would be far, far more noticeable, leading to them likely being a relief rather than used for doom-saying, because nobody's winning from outright pushing more fear in a full plague scenario.

And there'd be a lot of the situation resting on the breakdown, it could well be a matter of Grandma, Fatso, and Smoky being basically doomed but retain the healthy being near-totally safe, which is a lot less catastrophic than a blanket 22% case fatality rate. Also we'd have absolutely baffling questions about Finland, IIRC, having a 4% fatality rate, if we keep the national divergences.

Basically, less hand-wringing about health theater "DoInG sOmThInG" with weird half-measure lockdowns that leave the supermarkets open, more medicine being done and strict management of infection vectors, possibly to the point of fully-NBC-equipped door-to-door deliveries. Fuck you Wallmart, we got a plague to deal with!

 

[ThePoarter]

No, it'd be 219m people infected in the worst case scenario with 45.5 million deaths, by your own numbers. The suggestion is changing the mortality rate, with the other factors including infection staying the same, so it could spread no more than what has actually happened, and the far more extreme response and higher hospitalization rate can only reduce the cases.

With regard to answering the hypothetical, there'd be no room for anywhere near as much political shenanigans when you actually have people dying in the streets in serious numbers.

We could paradoxically end up with a lower final death total because it didn't take all that long to figure out a number of the underlying mechanisms of its lethality and egress into the body, so with it actually being a potential civilizational threat we'd see a lot more work into figuring out effective treatment of infections rather than so many sources pushing only the vaccine as the end of lockdown measures.

Assuming the variants manage to emerge at the same time despite more complete lockdowns, likely including telling the Chinese to fuck right the hell off for New Years 2020, and have the same proportional shift, then their lower lethality would be far, far more noticeable, leading to them likely being a relief rather than used for doom-saying, because nobody's winning from outright pushing more fear in a full plague scenario.

And there'd be a lot of the situation resting on the breakdown, it could well be a matter of Grandma, Fatso, and Smoky being basically doomed but retain the healthy being near-totally safe, which is a lot less catastrophic than a blanket 22% case fatality rate. Also we'd have absolutely baffling questions about Finland, IIRC, having a 4% fatality rate, if we keep the national divergences.

Basically, less hand-wringing about health theater "DoInG sOmThInG" with weird half-measure lockdowns that leave the supermarkets open, more medicine being done and strict management of infection vectors, possibly to the point of fully-NBC-equipped door-to-door deliveries. Fuck you Wallmart, we got a plague to deal with!

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In this case assume, unless stated otherwise, that the variants are also ten times more deadly. That means that overall we've seen, so far, is that instead of 9.5 -18.6 million people who have died from COVID it's 95-186 million instead. That makes COVID, in this instance somewhat worse than the Spanish flu.

As a result COVID, instead of being a 50 year event (e.g. the Hong Kong Flu happened in 1968 and killed 2.5 million people) this becomes a 1 in 150 or even 250 year event. What happens is that instead of 1 in 500 Americans dead that 1 in 50 Americans.

Australia instead now has 12,200 deaths instead which makes it as hard hit as Denmark. The United States has 6.87 Million deaths in this world instead. Brazil has between 6 million to 30 Million deaths instead (i.e. there's discrepancies stating that as much as 80% of all cases/deaths are under reported in Brazil).

Really makes the Pandemic MUCH worse.

How would such a world look like here?

 

[Muffin maker]

I imagine that most countries would adopt New Zeland's approach of mandatory quarantining early 2020 and/or just outright banning commercial international traveling.

This might means the virus doesn't even leave China or at the very least covid doesn't spread to as many countries as anything more than isolated cases, compared to irl.

 

[Purplepurple]

If all else remained the same how would things have played out around the world in the past year and a half?

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Reaction to virus 10x deadlier would be different.

It is possible that it would be have lower death toll due to earlier detection and SARS-like containment, ending with say 5 000 dead in total.

Or people would panic even more with stupidity and fear fueled collapse of order.

 

[warwick]

Reaction to virus 10x deadlier would be different.

It is possible that it would be have lower death toll due to earlier detection and SARS-like containment, ending with say 5 000 dead in total.

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probably this. covid manage to stay long because part of people around the globe underestimate it.
its stay of sweet spot of deadliness, symptoms, and infection rate, more than that it will be deal in extreme prejudice

 

[Hiddenhope]

Sometimes I do wish that COVID was as deadly as it was hyped up to be.
Mostly it would result in people taking taking things seriously. Like remembering that drugs can be used to inhibit viruses to help the body fight off the infection and recover, rather then everyone flushing their pandemic plans down the drain to test out this new 'lockdown' method which was an untested method only recently developed by China in the year it emerged.

Although as it was mentioned before, COVID would not be as successful if it was a deadly virus, becaue it would kill people before it could spread as far as far.

We don't have a worldwide ebola pandemic.

 

[ThePoarter]

Sometimes I do wish that COVID was as deadly as it was hyped up to be.
Mostly it would result in people taking taking things seriously. Like remembering that drugs can be used to inhibit viruses to help the body fight off the infection and recover, rather then everyone flushing their pandemic plans down the drain to test out this new 'lockdown' method which was an untested method only recently developed by China in the year it emerged.

Although as it was mentioned before, COVID would not be as successful if it was a deadly virus, becaue it would kill people before it could spread as far as far.

We don't have a worldwide ebola pandemic.

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True but Covid is also asymptomatic. You might get it but you might not know it until day 9 or 11 or 14.

 

[HellWan]

As someone who've gotten the disease and was bedridden. I would say that shit would have already killed about half of the population by now if it weren't for the vaccine.

Mainly the people who didn't know or care about putting their masks correctly or even using them in the first place.

 

[ThePoarter]

As someone who've gotten the disease and was bedridden. I would say that shit would have already killed about half of the population by now if it weren't for the vaccine.

Mainly the people who didn't know or care about putting their masks correctly or even using them in the first place.

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You think there would have been anarchy and social breakdown due to this Super COVID and its super variants?

 

[ATP]

So let's say all other factors remain the same for COVID-19 (i.e. asymptomatic for two weeks, a virus that spreads via coughing or etc) virus that came out of Wuhan, China in December 2019.

However there is one difference here. Instead of a mortality rate of 2.15% it now has a mortality rate of 21.5% which only makes it slightly better than Hantavirus, Dengue Fever or Smallpox (The latter as a mortality rate of 30-35%).

If all else remained the same how would things have played out around the world in the past year and a half?

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Another spain flu,then.Humanity survived it with much worst technology,and it is not even slowered economic or population grow.You need Depression for that,and communism for countries unhappy to get that plague.

 

[ThePoarter]

Another spain flu,then.Humanity survived it with much worst technology,and it is not even slowered economic or population grow.You need Depression for that,and communism for countries unhappy to get that plague.

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In case you didn't know the Spanish flu caused some collapse in several european nations.

 

[ATP]

In case you didn't know the Spanish flu caused some collapse in several european nations.

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far less then Crisis later.Or communism for those unfortunate to live in blasted system.So,we would not fare worst then them.
P.S there is no good numbers for victims of spanish flu in China and India - but,if the same percent like in Europe died,then spanish flu was 3-4 times worst then our stonger CV.

 

[ThePoarter]

far less then Crisis later.Or communism for those unfortunate to live in blasted system.So,we would not fare worst then them.
P.S there is no good numbers for victims of spanish flu in China and India - but,if the same percent like in Europe died,then spanish flu was 3-4 times worst then our stonger CV.

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We're assuming EVERY variant is ten times deadly and ten times more people die.

 

[ATP]

We're assuming EVERY variant is ten times deadly and ten times more people die.

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You mean,that every CV variant is 10 times more deadly then last? then,depend on how many variants would come.If we take more then 5,humanity would come back to caves.
I remember some old sci fi book about plagues which kill almost entire population,and few survivors is using stone tools.

 

[The_Fenestrated]

We're assuming EVERY variant is ten times deadly and ten times more people die.

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That seems incredibly unrealistic, a virus ten times more deadly would have provoked an even stronger reaction, and likely have brought itself out far faster or mutated into a less deadly strain.

 

[ThePoarter]

That seems incredibly unrealistic, a virus ten times more deadly would have provoked an even stronger reaction, and likely have brought itself out far faster or mutated into a less deadly strain.

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To be fair the past two years have show how stupid people can people. I don't think it could be considered in realistic. So go with the situation

 

[ATP]

To be fair the past two years have show how stupid people can people. I don't think it could be considered in realistic. So go with the situation

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Do not apply.People always were stupid/remember,how many idiots praised commie genociders?/,but viruses are neither stupid or smart,but follow rules.One of them is ,that next strain is ALWAYS weaker then first.
So,you could have only one wave of CV 10 times worst/which would be still less bad then spanish flu/,next would be,let say,4 times worst,next as bad as OTL.
Humanity would survive it better then spanish flu.

 

[Xicree]

rather then everyone flushing their pandemic plans down the drain to test out this new 'lockdown' method which was an untested method only recently developed by China in the year it emerged.

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You... do realize that Lockdowns are literally the Traditional manner in which pandemics have been dealt with since we've started having Large cities right?

Like historically speaking the reason we even have the word Quarantine is because it was a specific reference to an Amount of Time to for people to spend in a lockdown during a plague.

 

[Jamesson Locke]

rules.One of them is ,that next strain is ALWAYS weaker then first.

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*Looks at the Indian and African variants of Covid*
Uhhhh you sure about that?

 

[ATP]

*Looks at the Indian and African variants of Covid*
Uhhhh you sure about that?

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Usually weaker.OK now? plagues which kill too well spread slower.That is why Ebola never was big problem.

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

Mostly it would result in people taking taking things seriously. Like remembering that drugs can be used to inhibit viruses to help the body fight off the infection and recover, rather then everyone flushing their pandemic plans down the drain to test out this new 'lockdown' method which was an untested method only recently developed by China in the year it emerged.

Click to shrink...

Do not apply.People always were stupid/remember,how many idiots praised commie genociders?/,but viruses are neither stupid or smart,but follow rules.One of them is ,that next strain is ALWAYS weaker then first.
So,you could have only one wave of CV 10 times worst/which would be still less bad then spanish flu/,next would be,let say,4 times worst,next as bad as OTL.
Humanity would survive it better then spanish flu.

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Idiocy like this is exactly the reason why I advised against the creation of this thread in the first place.

This is why you can't have nice things. Thread locked, discussion over.