They'll die then.
This isn't covid, this is far far worse. When covid began I was grateful that it wasn't bird flu. There won't be any space for that kind of quibbling when over HALF the people getting sick die. No chance of just covering it up and getting people back to work. It'd be like the 1918 pathogen, whole families wiped out. It's absolutely the worst case scenario in terms of pandemics that could realistically happen.