haxxiy on 29 February 2020
I think the closest historical analogue to the new Coronavirus is the 1957 Flu pandemic, which also began in China and had an estimated death rate between 0.1% and 1.6%. Back then, we also didn't have antivirals against Influenza. It was a much younger population worldwide, mind, but potentially there were more smokers across Europe and specially the US.
Curiously, the same virus returned about a decade later as a milder strain of flu that also caused a pandemic.
Mind you, a pandemic with a PSI between 2 and 4 such as this can potentially kill 500,000 - 1,500,000 people in the US alone. That's almost a decade's worth of flu deaths. The economy... isn't probably going to like it.
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