> but wouldn't the number of excess deaths in a hypothetical world where no measures had been taken at all To me, a more likely scenario is that the virus woul

> but wouldn't the number of excess deaths in a hypothetical world where no measures had been taken at all To me, a more likely scenario is that the virus would basically run through the world's population during the first year, killing most susceptible quickly. The fact the original was a more deadly strain and the complete overloading of medical care would not help either. > ignoring the fact that viruses naturally become less lethal over time, as killing too many hosts is bad for spreading further This is likely not a strong factor in Covid since it's not enough deadly and there's enough time to spread the virus before dying. A more fitting explanation is the reversion to the mean. Covid-19 was/is an exceptionally deadly strain of coronavirus, it's more likely that its mutations will trend in the direction of mean coronavirus lethality.