I cant find any more reliable sample than the Diamond Princess.
Indeed it is a good sample.
Now let's multiple Diamond Princess sample size by a million.
Out of 3.6 billion adults, 700 million will get infected, 6 million will die.
I think humanity can handle it.
According to wikipedia, "Global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually, or 1.1% per year."
Yes, indeed. Also when you adjust for the age skew of a cruise trip passenger population its probably about 3 million dead, and Id guess a very large chunk of those 3 million were gonna die in 2020 anyway as they represent the weakest members of our population in terms of health. You may see a large spike in deaths for a few months but Id guess the overall deaths for 2020 wouldnt be all that much higher than normal.
Kind of like letting a bunch of prisoners out of jail in the spring when most were already scheduled to get out that year anyway. You come back a year later and the prison population is pretty normal as it has refilled with criminals again.
These viruses go after the weak and compete for the same low hanging fruit.
For every elderly that the coronavirus kills, that may be one less death in 2020 from the flu as corona beats the flu to the punch. You will probably see a drop in deaths for 2020 across the board for heart disease, diabetes, flu, etc as coronavirus plays the early bird and gets the worms.