Coronavirus could kill more people than any other event in living memory. We can stop that happening – but everyone has to act now.

TL;DR: This virus would cause twice as many deaths worldwide as World War 2 if we did nothing.

The best-guess estimates for SARS-CoV-2’s (aka COVID-19) death rate is ~0.5% in countries where healthcare systems are coping (think South Korea or Germany) and 1.5% to 15% in countries where they are not (think Italy or Iran).

World population today is ~7.7 billion, and SARS-CoV-2’s has already spread everywhere. We think ~60% of people might get it – or ~4.5 billion people.

Best case scenario – 20 million people dead. Worst case scenario – 600 million people dead.

9/11 killed 3,000 people. World War 2 killed 85 million people. Spanish Flu killed up to 100 million people. SARS-CoV-2 could easily kill 200 million people. This is the most serious event in living memory.

Tl;DR: Continuing to socialise now will directly cause more deaths.

Don’t panic – you will probably be fine. But many, particularly in vulnerable groups, will not be.

Hospitals across the country have quadrupled their capacity. In a week or two, they will all be full. That’s when people start dying.

It is almost too late. But if we can slow down how fast the virus is spreading, we can still give doctors a chance to save thousands of lives.

Social distancing, self-isolation and lockdown can buy us the time we need, but only if every single person takes them seriously. Right now, the UK is a house of cards – if even one person breaks the rules, everything will come tumbling down.

Literally each and every person who goes out and about today is significantly and directly increasing the number of people who will die in April. So whether you are young or old, have symptoms or feel fantastic, isolate yourself as much as possible right now. If you don’t, people will die.

Qualifications: I studied immunology and epidemiology at Cambridge, including the exact model that the UK government are using to inform their policy decisions.

To understand more about coronavirus and this pandemic, watch this Kurzgesagt video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtN-goy9VOY