I didn't realize this thread didn't start until Feb 9 of 2021. I guess it was for the vaccine and not COVID. IIRC, I came back from a seminar in San Francisco in Feb of 2020. I called a friend who grew up in Hong Kong after that seminar. The point was that people were freaking out over this thing named COVID. at the time, the mortality rate was expected to be 3%. With that, I calculated that we could expect 3% of 9B or 270m people worldwide.
I recall people raking me for a few weeks. Then everyone started to realize the severity right before St. Patricks day. By March 16th, everything was shutting down. Amazing to look back on that.