[Mr. K]

3% DEATH RATE?
That’s not good but it’s not horrifying.

75% (or more) death rate for Ebola- that’s horrifying. Because you can pass it on before your symptoms start.

[Pelham]

Ebola isn’t easily transmitted which limits its potential as a mass killer.

Influenza and other respiratory viruses are highly contagious, which is why the 1918 Flu could kill so many.

1918 was a hybrid flu. Any swine flu or bird flu cross with a human flu is especially dangerous. They leverage your immune system against you and can kill via a cytokine storm.

Apparently these coronaviruses are similar to influenza. Respiratory so easily passed along.

[grey_whiskers]

Also depends on transmissibility; and the mutation rate, more specifically, how quickly it mutates to less lethal / less transmissible forms. Average number of flu cases in the US each season is between 9 million - 45 million cases. So that's a range of fatalities from 270,000 to 1.35 million. DEAD.

A million dead in the US is nothing to sneeze at (pardon the macabre humor).