Actually the coronavirus fatality rate isn’t the same as the flu. It’s twenty times higher. Influenza’s fatality rate is 0.1%. Covid 19’s fatality rate is about 2–3%.

The main concern I’ve seen, which is not to say some people haven’t been panicking unnecessarily, is that if the virus spreads too quickly, the hospital system will be unable to cope, and more deaths will result. In Wuhan there were people dying in wheelchairs outside hospital rooms and in the corridors because there just weren’t enough beds.

Yes, Covid 19 will not kill most of us. It especially is unlikely to kill anyone under the age of 40. I also think people panicking and having riots over toilet paper is stupid.

However. Influenza kills millions per year. If coronavirus kills 10–20x that amount, that’s a LOT of deaths. Mostly the elderly or the immunocompromised. It may not be us, but it could be our grandparents, or our friends with immune disorders, or people with cancer, cystic fibrosis or other chronic diseases. Don’t their lives matter too?

Slowing the spread of Covid 19 in a REASONABLE way, will give the people most at risk the best chance to (if not avoid) have the best treatment possible if they do get infected. Do you want your grandparents, if they catch the disease, to die in a crowded hospital corridor, unattended? Or do you want the doctors to be able to give them the care they may desperately need?