The real death rate from this slightly enhanced common cold is most likely around 0.1%. That’s when you count the millions who got it, thought they had a plain old cold, and didn’t feel like donating a $100 copay to be told by an urgent care technician to go down to Walgreens to buy a box of wal-phed. There was a test of a bunch of bums in Boston a couple weeks ago. A huge percentage tested positive with no symptoms. When you can get a captive group where you test EVERYONE, not just those who have symptoms worth more than a $100 copay, you start to see glimpses of the real fatality rate, which isn’t all that high. Case in point: The prison in Tennessee reported yesterday that had something like 2000 positive cases, around half the population. One or two hospitalized.
So it’s very unlikely you could efficiently “off” someone with this bug. Unless they’re like my Mom, who is in chemotherapy, and being immunocompromised, would be in danger, even from a regular cold or flu.
So it’s very unlikely you could efficiently “off” someone with this bug.
_____________________
Likely that’s not the operative condition, though. Since the goalposts have moved to *number of cases*, all a serial infector would need to do is cause a positive test result, even if there are no symptoms or sequela.