Unless of course, the summer doesn't do anything to the virus. It affected its closest cousin (SARS) a bit, and it just didn't affect its second cousin (MERS) at all (in fact, MERS originated in Saudi Arabia during the summer when it is over 40 C). And then we get 20-60% of the world population infected, tens of millions dying (more die if there is not adequate medical support, which won't be if the numbers get high). And the businesses will be crippled with that many sick people.
I think a lot of people are missing the point, and having a fundamental problem of not understanding exponential functions. Yes, at the moment the risk of dying (or even getting sick) is very low. Heck, you're more likely to die from flu (it kills 400k per year or 100 times more than this virus). But the number of infected people is growing exponentially. It took 3 months to reach 100k, it would take 6 days from now to reach 200k, 12 days to reach 400k, and a month to reach 1 million people. 3 months to reach one billion. Of course, it is not gonna be like this thanks to the massive efforts of China who bought a lot of time to the world, but in other countries, it is still going exponentially, and that is extremely worrying.
Even a very optimistic scenario is saying that 20% of people will get it (the forecasts are saying 20-60%), and if we assume a mortality rate of 0.65% (South Korea), that kills 10m people (as much as flu would kill for the next 30 years). The death rate will be higher, cause the medical system won't be able to support these many people. If we go for the worst-case scenario (60% infected, the mortality rate of 3.5%, like WHO is saying) then 160 million people are gonna die from it within the year. That is more than in both world wars combined.
No panic, just another flu, we will get used to it, and I hope that my stocks don't lose value!
