While SARS-2 is less deadly than SARS-1 in a given single case, that does not mean that it’s less dangerous overall. Imagine a population of one thousand people and a pathogen that infects twenty of them; this pathogen makes those people seriously ill and kills two of them. That yields a CFR of 10 percent. Now imagine another population of one thousand people and another pathogen that does the same thing—it makes twenty people seriously ill and kills two of them—but this pathogen also infects another one hundred eighty people, making them mildly or moderately ill but not killing them. The CFR
...more
