Bingo on Prometheus! Thanks for reminding me of that! lol.
Hey everyone! Here's a cheery one for you. Go rent the movie "Contagion" with Matt Damon and Gweneth Paltrow in it. THAT's the worst case "super bug" scenario and also is a very damn realistic movie about how such a thing could happen and spread. Think of the spread of the normal flu or even this coronavirus, but something that kills like 80% of the people who get it. Cheery movie!

Seriously, it's very good, but if you might be prone to panic about Coronavirus, definitely DO NOT watch it!
Also as someone else also correctly pointed out, fortunately for us, mutations tend to make viruses less deadly. Viruses that kill their hosts are shortening their own lifecycle as they cannot exist in a dead host. So mutations tend to prolong the infections and temper the aspects that lead to death. FORTUNATELY. That being said, there's no reason it couldn't happen the other way. Some scientists believe that Ebola actually mutated from another virus that was much more benign and THAT thing is the stuff of nightmares. If something like EBOLA got to be spread and was as contagious as the flu...well...we'd all be living a modern day rewind of the 'black death' in Europe that killed over half of the population. Yikes!
And on that cheery note...have a great night!