Chart Everything / coronavirus, Hugh Montgomery

For Everyone Else

By Nathan Yau

In a Channel 4 clip, Hugh Montgomery does some back-of-the-napkin math contrasting the normal flu against the coronavirus.

“If you are irresponsible enough to think that you don’t mind if you get the flu, remember it’s not about you – it’s about everybody else.”

Intensive care specialist Professor Hugh Montgomery explains why this coronavirus is different from the ordinary flu. pic.twitter.com/h9sQorHQUv

— Channel 4 Dispatches (@C4Dispatches) March 22, 2020

Montgomery assumes that on average, someone infected by the coronavirus infects 3 others and that someone with the normal flu infects 1.3 to 1.4 others. There’s still more to find out about that 3x figure, but the main point — that staying at home right now is for the good of everyone — still holds.

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