The fatality rate for COVID-19, the respiratory disease that results from exposure to the coronavirus, has been revised upward from between 1-2 percent to 3.4 percent, Business Insider reports. By comparison, the regular, seasonal flu has a fatality rate of about 0.1 percent.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revised the numbers upward this week, telling a press conference that the “novel coronavirus,” as it’s officially called, is different from other respiratory illnesses like SARS, MERS, and seasonal flu.
For example, people around the world contend with seasonal flu every year, and of course there are vaccines, so people have had more time to build up immunity to it. Coronavirus is new, so people haven’t had the opportunity to build up immunity to it.
He also called COVID-19 a “more serious disease” than the seasonal flu.
“It is a unique virus with unique characteristics,” he said.
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