Coronavirus vs other pandemics

The Black Death “killed tens of millions of people, an estimated 30-50 percent of the European population, between 1347-1351” (source). Smallpox “is estimated to have claimed 60 million lives in the 18th century alone. In the 20th century, it killed some 300 million people globally” (source). The Spanish Flu killed “0.95%” to “5.4%” of “the world population” at the time (source). HIV/AIDS has killed around “32.7 million” through to 2019 (source), which approximates to a global death rate of 0.4-0.7% (depending on the year selected).

In late 2020 National Geographic said this about COVID-19: “By the end of 2020, about 100 million additional people are projected to find themselves in extreme poverty, living on less than $1.90 a day. Millions more are slipping into less extreme poverty tiers. Continued lockdowns could worsen these already grim projections in 2021.” Source. As we reported earlier, the coronavirus and associated lockdowns have resulted in a large transfer of wealth from the poor to the very rich.

Since the start of the pandemic in 2019, approximately 2.7 million people have died from coronavirus. Source. Given the current population of around 7.9 billion people, that is a global death rate of approximately 0.03%, or a third of a tenth of 1%, or 3-4 people out of every 10,000.

Okay then.