Covid-19 crisis How serious is the pandemic?
The World Health Organization website reported 33,982 deaths out of 722,464 infected people, giving a mortality rate of 4.7%.

On its own, the deaths of 33,982 is not alarming. Each year, 3 million people die from pneumonia caused by all kinds of germs. Most of the deaths from the corona virus are related to pneumonia.

What the people and governments are worried about is that the deaths will increase many fold, maybe 100 or 1,000 times. If it is 1,000 times, we are looking at 33 million deaths. 

 These people are worried that the virus, being very contagious, will infect many more people and lead to a huge increase in deaths.

I do not think that the matters will become so serious. I have been observing the statistics closely for some time and have read reports from many sources. 

Although I do not have conclusive evidence, I am inclined to draw the following conclusions:

a) The infection has already been quite widespread. There is a model that suggest that maybe half of the UK population have already been exposed to the virus.

b) Many of the infected people do not become sick. Those reported as infected are the sick ones. The actual number of infected people could be 25 times of the sick ones (based on a small study in Iceland)

Let me make this guess - the percentage already infected world wide is 25%. If this is the case, we can expect the number of deaths to be 4 times of the current number, say 140,000.

If the virus becomes more serious and lead to a higher fatality rate, maybe the deaths can double to say 300,000.

Even if this number is too low, we may project the number to be 1 million. This is only one third of the number that die from pneumonia every year. 

There is another fear that the sick people will overwhelm the hospital system. I agree. There is time for governments to address this risk by taking early action to increase the capacity to treat the sick patients. 

Maybe the capacity can be expanded 5 to 10 times. This will include bed, equipment, doctors and nurses. 

I do not think that this pandemic will be as serious as most people fear. It will not lead to the kind of deaths that occurred 100 years ago by the Spanish flu epidemic. 

I remain hopeful and calm.

Tan Kin Lian

Vote - do you agree with my projection that the actual deaths will not exceed 1 million?

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