--- title: "Expert: Deadly Viral Outbreak Could Infect 60% of World Population" description: "Gabriel Leung, public health expert, told The Guardian that 60% of the world's population could get infected by the coronavirus, if left unchecked." date: "2020-02-11" modified: "2020-02-11" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/expert-virus-outbreak-infect-60-percent-world-population" categories: - "Developments" - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "china" - "coronavirus" - "covid-19" - "virus" --- # Expert: Deadly Viral Outbreak Could Infect 60% of World Population ![Gabriel Leung, public health expert, told The Guardian that 60% of the world's population could get infected by the coronavirus, if left unchecked.]() *\Image: NASA/Victor Tangermann\* Gabriel Leung, the chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University and a leading health expert during the 2002 SARS outbreak, [told *The Guardian*]() that the [deadly virus known as Covid-19]() "could infect 60 percent of global population if unchecked." But he also urged caution. "Is 60-80 percent of the world’s population going to get infected? Maybe not," Leung told *The Guardian*. "Maybe this will come in waves. Maybe the virus is going to attenuate its lethality because it certainly doesn’t help it if it kills everybody in its path, because it will get killed as well." Leung also said that other countries should consider draconian measures to halt the spread of the outbreak, like China has. "Have these massive public health interventions, social distancing, and mobility restrictions worked in China?" he asked *The Guardian*. "If so, how can we roll them out, or is it not possible?" Even with a fatality rate of just one percent, the deaths from such wide exposure would be staggering. But for now, that's the worst case scenario. At press time, [over 1,000 people]() in mainland China alone have been confirmed to have died from the virus, with over 42,000 infections in the country. And it's spreading fast. On Monday, World Health Organization officials [warned]() of future outbreaks across the globe. Epidemiologists are now looking for the best measures to keep the virus contained and those numbers to a minimum — a task made even more difficult by the fact that we still don't know how exactly the deadly virus is transmitted. ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()