No need to panic just yet as the Coronavirus slowly spreads around the world, but a recent simulation of how the virus could continue to grow has literally resulted in the deaths of 65 million people.

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The simulation was actually run back in October 2019 at a conference called Event201, which was organised by the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Participants were asked to run a tabletop simulation analysing the potential threat of a Coronavirus and here’s what they managed to find out:

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The exercise consisted of a 3.5-hour pandemic tabletop exercise that simulated a series of dramatic, scenario-based facilitated discussions, confronting difficult, true-to-life dilemmas associated with response to a hypothetical, but scientifically plausible, pandemic.

The scenario ended at the 18-month point, with 65 million deaths.

To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise.

For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction.

Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic.

We are not now predicting that the nCoV-2019 outbreak will kill 65 million people.

Although our tabletop exercise included a mock novel coronavirus, the inputs we used for modeling the potential impact of that fictional virus are not similar to nCoV-2019.

I mean sure it was fictional and just an exercise, but surely it’s not the best look when people who are supposedly experts in their fields are saying that this thing is gonna wipe out 65 million people? Better stock up on vegetables and end up to the mountains for a bit until it all blows over hey?

For more of the same, check out The Simpsons predicting the Coronavirus back in an episode all the way back from 1993. They’ve got a way of doing these things haven’t they?