This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Most Important News.

Over the past week, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 outside of China more than tripled once again.  Hopefully, it is extremely unlikely that such a rapid growth rate will continue, because if it does, there will be more than a million confirmed cases outside of China just a month from now.

I don’t even want to imagine the level of fear that would cause, and needless to say, that would be absolutely devastating for the entire global economy.  Of course, if we do get to a million confirmed cases, there won’t be any way to keep it from spreading everywhere on the entire globe, and the ultimate death toll could be unimaginable.

According to the WHO, the current death rate for this outbreak is 3.4 percent, and many experts believe that it will continue to go higher.

That means that a whole lot of people will die if this virus cannot be contained somehow.

Researchers at a major university in Australia modeled seven different scenarios for how a COVID-19 pandemic might go, and in the “best-case scenario” the death toll was 15 million…

New modeling from The Australian National University looks at seven scenarios of how the COVID-19 outbreak might affect the world’s wealth, ranging from low severity to high severity.

Four of the seven scenarios in the paper examine the impact of COVID-19 spreading outside China, ranging from low to high severity. A seventh scenario examines a global impact in which a mild pandemic occurs each year indefinitely.

But even in the low-severity model — or best-case scenario of the seven, which the paper acknowledged were not definitive — ANU researchers estimate a global GDP loss of $2.4 trillion, with an estimated death toll of 15 million.

A pandemic that kills 15 million people would change everything.

I sincerely hope that we don’t see anything like that, but other experts are coming up with similar projections.  A Harvard epidemiologist is warning that 40 to 70 percent of the entire global population will eventually catch this virus, and Mike Adams is projecting that more than two million Americans could be dead by July 4th “if domestic travel is not aggressively halted”…

Today I finished tweaking the first draft of a pandemic projection model that simulates the spread of the coronavirus in the United States. The assumptions of the model are explained here, and you will find they are extremely conservative (using R0 value of just 1.82, for example).

The model’s predictions are nothing short of apocalyptic if the virus is allowed to spread without restraint across the United States. According to the model, there will be 2.16 million dead Americans by July 4th if domestic travel is not aggressively halted very soon (see the full projections below). This is not a prediction, since I believe that state governments and the federal government will intervene long before July 4th to declare, essentially, medical martial law.

Let us pray that nothing like this ever happens.

But if we all stick our heads in the sand and pretend that this virus isn’t a major threat, that will just make matters a lot worse.

At this point, the truth is that we don’t really know the true extent of the outbreak in the United States because authorities are just now starting to ramp up testing.  Vice-President Pence had hoped to get a million testing kits to local communities this week, but that is simply not going to happen…

Mike Pence admitted Thursday that the administration will not be able to follow meet its promise to deliver one million coronavirus testing kits by the end of the week.

‘We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate the demand going forward,’ Pence said during a visit to a 3M Company plant in Minnesota Thursday afternoon.

Meanwhile, things are really starting to get weird out there.

The number of confirmed cases in the Seattle area has surged to 70, and authorities have transformed an aging EconoLodge into a “quarantine village”…

The EconoLodge in Kent, which is in the heart of the Seattle–Tacoma metropolitan area, will be America’s first Covid-19 quarantine village. As cases and deaths surge in Washington state, officials aren’t constructing modular hospitals in two weeks like China did last month, but rather buying existing commercial properties, such as motels, and stuffing infected people within.

Markovich said another “Covid-19 quarantine village using modular units now underway at 1100 block of 128th St. in North Seattle. There has been no public announcement about this so far.”

I suppose that such facilities will be able to house a few hundred people, but what are local officials going to do if hundreds of thousands of people get the virus?

Once this virus begins to spread in a community, the number of cases can escalate at a staggering rate.  If you have any doubts about this, just look at what is happening in France.

We will probably see that sort of a growth rate in certain communities here in the U.S., and that is truly chilling.

In Iran, the number of confirmed cases has now crossed the 3,500 mark, and it is being reported that “dozens of bodies” are piling up in Iranian morgues…

Dozens of bodies sheathed in black bags line the floor of an Iranian morgue, while workers in protective suits and masks busily walk among them.

It’s unclear which, if any, of the people whose bodies lie in the morgue were infected with the coronavirus gripping the country, in this footage from inside Qom’s Behesht-e Masoumeh morgue.

The official death toll in Iran is only 107 at this point, but many believe that the true number is much, much higher.

As usual, the Iranians are blaming their problems on the United States and Israel.  In fact, one Iranian general is publicly claiming that this virus is “a manmade bioweapon” that was purposely deployed against China and Iran…

An Iranian military leader has suggested that the coronavirus is not a naturally occurring disease, and that it is a manmade bioweapon cultivated and released against China and Iran by a ‘hostile state’.

Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, an Iranian officer in charge of the country’s Civil Defense Organization claimed Tuesday that “A study of the consequences of the virus in terms of tolls or the extent of the epidemic and the type of media propaganda over this issue that is aimed at increasing fear and panic among people strengthens the speculations that a biological attack has been launched against China and Iran with economic goals.”

Of course, the truth is that this virus has created a major crisis for the entire planet.

In the UK, there is so much anxiety about this virus that British supermarkets are actually preparing for “food riots”…

British supermarkets are prepared for food riots if panic buying becomes widespread in the worst-cast scenario of a coronavirus pandemic, a retail expert has said.

Former Tesco supply chain director Bruno Monteyne said a major outbreak of the virus would result in ‘panic buying, empty shelves and food riots’ but that at this stage retailers would revert to ‘feed the nation’ status to avoid anyone going hungry.

And all over the western world, fans are already being banned from major sporting events in order to help prevent the spread of this disease.

If this outbreak continues to rapidly escalate, the way that we live our lives is going to be dramatically altered.  So let us pray for mercy because we definitely need it.

Sadly, many Americans are not getting prepared for a potential pandemic because they have been told over and over again that this virus is not any more dangerous than the flu.

That is definitely not true.  As I explained the other day, the flu usually has a death rate of about 0.1 percent each year, and this virus currently has a death rate of 3.4 percent…

“Globally, about 3.4 percent of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press briefing Tuesday. The rate describes the proportion of deaths among confirmed cases. And it was greater than the previous coronavirus CFR estimate (2 percent in China), far higher than the seasonal flu (which kills 0.1 percent of those infected on average), and even worse than the Spanish flu pandemic (which killed 2 to 3 percent of those infected).

Last century, the Spanish Flu pandemic killed somewhere between 50 million and 100 million people, and this virus currently has an even higher death rate.

Are you starting to understand?

This outbreak has the potential to kill millions upon millions of people, and anyone that is not taking it seriously is not being very wise at all.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations, I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and anyway that you can share these articles with others is a great help.