It isn’t the virus itself that is the main problem, it is the impact on society. The worst case scenario in this country would have an extreme impact. Hospitals already facing normal winter pressures would be faced with increased admissions and the likelihood that a large number of their staff would be infected. Should infected staff who are otherwise we’ll continue to work, if so should they only work with confirmed covid-19 infected people? Hospitals will have to discharge people they would not normally discharged putting them in the care of social care which is also under pressure and may face the same staffing problems the NHS faces.
Moving goods around the country will become more problematic especially if there are restrictions on movement in and out of certain areas as we are seeing in Italy. And again, goods require people to move them and there would be less people available if those infected are isolated.
There may be much that can be done “remotely” but there is still so much of our society that relies on social contact. Businesses will fail if they have no customers, jobs will be lost and people will face financial hardship. The economy would tank possibly on a scale that would dwarf what happened on 2008.
Anything less than the worst case scenario is better but nobody really knows what the consequences of a 2% infection rate compared to a 20% infection rate compared to an 80% infection rate 20% would be. I guess that even a 2% infection rate across the population would only be possible if significant mitigation was put in place as it seems to be a virus that is very contagious.
2% is roughly 1.2 million people and if it got to that stage it is likely to be concentrated in densely populated areas. London, Birmingham, Manchester... the impact of this taking hold are multiple and likely to effect people beyond whether their symptoms are mild or severe.
