[femto]

This paper puts some numbers around that, looking at death rates before a vaccine was available.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122...

Without a vaccination, it killed 12.9% of people who were infected, killing mostly older people and people who had multiple pathologies (eg. hypertension).

[thfuran]

That’s 12.9% of hospital inpatients. All estimates I’ve seen for infection fatality rate — that is, mortality rate among all those infected — place it around 1–2%

[cthalupa]

Something that contagious that kills ~13% of people infected is something I would argue is quite deadly.

Especially when half of adults in america are hypertensive.

[thfuran]

It doesn’t kill 13% of people infected, only about 1%. Just look at the number of cases reported compared to the number of deaths. That paper was reporting 13% mortality rate among those admitted to the hospital, not among all those infected.