“Why aren’t people this worried about normal flu?” has been the refrain of high-street coronavirus experts since the disease first emerged at the very end of 2019. But this conflation is wrong for a number of reasons. First off, Covid-19 is more deadly than seasonal flu. The average flu strain kills about 0.1 per cent of those infected, but the Covid-19 mortality rate is much higher. Figures from Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, put it at closer to two per cent while figures including deaths outside of Wuhan are lower.

Covid-19 also seems to spread more easily than seasonal flu. The infectiousness of a disease is defined by something called the reproduction number, which estimates how many new infections spring from each case of the virus. Each person infected with Covid-19 appears to infect 2.2 more people on average, but for seasonal flu that number is about 1.3.

Another factor that makes Covid-19 worth worrying about is the fact that it’s a totally new virus in humans. We don’t have any natural immunity or vaccines against Covid-19. And although more than 80 per cent of Covid-19 cases are mild, according to one Chinese study, this makes it more likely that it’ll spread without being detected by health authorities.