Ahhh, the old flu argument eh? Corona cant be that bad as flu kills 60K a year or whatever.
There a few minor differences though:
80% of the population dont contract flu every year
20% are not off work at any given time
14% dont end up in hospital
It doesnt infect 3400 healthcare workers like it has in China
The issue with Corona is not how many people it will kill, its how it will affect our infrastructure. If 20% of the population have it at any one time as predicted by the Government and 15% of them need hospital treatment thats over 2m extra people in hospital care.
If schools are closed then parents will have to take time off to look after them. Public transport could be halted which would have a massive impact on day to day life, its possible that imports and exports will be frozen too.
If that all happens at once we are ****ed. The best bet is stry and spread out the contraction rate as much as possible so the impact on society is limited - thats what all of this "scaremongering" is all about. Except its not scaremongering.