Comment by mlsu
4 hours ago
Covid, ahem, could have been designed in a lab to be an "ideal" bioweapon. As far as viruses go it approximated just about the best bioweapon we could have made with current technology.
- very deadly
- asymptomatic spreading for a couple days
- spreads easy
- no tests/vaccine (early on)
It did kill a lot of people, that's for sure, and caused a huge disruption. But was far less disruptive, imo, than e.g. a nuke in multiple big cities would have been, even if the death toll was similar.
> very deadly
Covid wasn't "very deadly" at all.
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).
It was too contagious and not nearly virulent enough to be an ideal bioweapon.