First, your claim that 1 million died of the Hong Kong flu in 6 months, in Asian countries including Vietnam, is based on a newspaper article in the South China Morning Post. February 1968 was also when the Tet offensive was underway in Vietnam. I’m not sure how anyone was able to keep track of flu deaths in Vietnam at that time. Nor is it clear that anyone knows when the first case of Hong Kong flu occurred. But be patient, and we will see some very impressive results from this flu. There were 4,890 deaths yesterday so in 200 days - about 6 months - there’s your 1 million deaths. BTW the death rate is rising every day.
Nor is it clear that anyone knows when the first case of Hong Kong flu occurred.
As for the deadliness of the Wuhan Coronavirus, even with a proposed ‘miracle cure’ available, we are seeing earlier reported death rates as calculated by the naïve deaths/case methodology continuously climb in given countries.
South Korea has been lauded for weeks for its comprehensive testing. In the early stages their death/cases rate was very low as well. Then it stabilized at around 0.4% as it turned the corner at the beginning of March.
With relatively few new cases that death rate has continued to creep up.
Date cases dead rec death/cases
3/22 8897 104 2909 1.12%
3/23 8961 111 3166 1.24%
3/24 9037 120 3507 1.33%
3/25 9137 126 3730 1.38%
3/26 9241 131 4144 1.42%
3/27 9332 139 4528 1.49%
3/28 9478 144 4811 1.52%
3/29 9583 152 5033 1.59%
3/30 9661 158 5228 1.63%
3/31 9786 162 5408 1.65%
4/01 9887 165 5567 1.67%
4/02 9976 169 5828 1.69%
Unresolved is at 40% now, which is far lower than anyplace else other than China.
Convergence of death/resolved arc and death/case looks like it will be at about 2.1% if treatments do not further change.
South Korea appears to have successfully limited the spread to a relatively small number, and there do not appear to be any vast unknown-infected, as there is only a small spread rate.
For NYC, roughly 1/3 of all the reported deaths from the Coronavirus have been reported in the past two days, and 1/2 in the past 3 days..