As of this writing 19 Mar 2020, there are approximately 2.5 million COVID-19 cases worldwide and the death toll is just over 0.16 million. Below is an interesting graph listing worldwide deaths in 2017 from various causes. Approximately 56 million worldwide. Currently COVID-19 would rank very close to the bottom of the list. However, this COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. It is estimated that up to 80% of the cases are mild or without any symptoms at all, so it is extremely difficult to determine what the actual mortality rate is. Estimates are wide ranging. “We estimate that in the absence of interventions, COVID-19 would have resulted in 7.0 billion infections and 40 million deaths globally this year,” says a March 26 report by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team. With interventions it appears that the death toll could be 1.0 million or less in 2020. Of course, we continue to get waves of cases at least until an effective vaccine is developed and widely deployed around the world. New estimates published by the CDC on 13 Dec 2017 range from between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-estimate.html An interesting perspective is emerging from the Chinese data which indicates that more lives may have been saved from reduced pollution than actually died of COVID-19.
Here is another graphic showing the magnitudes of previous pandemics vs our current COVID-19 pandemic. Here is the link to VisualCapitalist.com for a higher resolution version of this History of Pandemics. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/
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