> Ah, your data is well out of date. Smallpox has been eradicated since the 1970s. There is no other data, and the data that exists doesn't support your assert

> Ah, your data is well out of date. Smallpox has been eradicated since the 1970s. There is no other data, and the data that exists doesn't support your assertion. A paper from 2001 is up to date. Citing point estimates for SARS-CoV2 is not a rebuttal; there are many such estimates, and as I said, they're specific to time and place. The best you can do is compare distributions and look for general trends. > The delta variant (B.1.617.2), now dominant in California and elsewhere, is approximately 2x more infectious than that original variant from the data I’ve found...That would put it (in a ‘natural’ setting) at R0 being roughly 12-13 You're just making things up. You can't take an old estimate, multiply it by some arbitrary factor, and draw a conclusion from it.