Originally Posted by
Paul852
They have plenty of idea - there's no shortage of data.
It's basically of the same order of magnitude of danger (transmissibility and mortality) as influenza. Flu kills thousands of people every year in Germany. Why don't you panic about that instead?
It seems that where Influenza has a mortality rate of 0.1% initial assessments of Coronavirus are 3% the infectiousness may also be higher - Spanish Flu of 1918 had mortality rate of 2,5% so
lower than the assessment for this Coronavirus. All figures are still being assessed and the actual numbers infected is difficult to assess as the symptoms are not clear cut. It could be as or more severe as 1918 - nobody knows as yet. But the Chinese are building a couple of hospitals in less than 10 days - so they think it is serious and not just another influenza variant.
See
Homeland Security Site - Wuhan novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)