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A member asked:
If covid-19 is the second sars coronavirus outbreak, when was the first and how much worse is covid-19 compared to the first sars outbreak?
6 doctors weighed in across 2 answers
COVID-19, SARS, MERS: COVID-19 is the third serious coronavirus outbreak, not the second. The first was SARS in 2005, the second MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) in 2012. Neither SARS nor MERS caused nearly as many cases ad COVID-19 has caused so far; in that sense, COVID-19 is worse. On the other hand, the death rate from COVID-19 (around 2%) is much lower than for SARS (10%) and MERS (30%).
Answered 3/16/2020
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Coronavirus: Today (5 Mar 2020) the global death rate was estimated to be 3.4% by WHO. However, that number is not carved in stone. Although the death rate was significantly higher for SARS and MERS, there are a larger number of people infected with Covid-19, which will affect the overall number of deaths.
Answered 11/1/2021
95 views
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