Originally Posted by
crankyanker
I don't think that's a particularly meaningful representation of the risk associated with this virus.
First, not all provinces are reporting outcomes (death or recovery) but all are reporting infections. Likewise only China has recorded deaths, and only Japan and Thailand have reported outcomes (all recoveries) outside China. If you concentrate on Hubei (which has been releasing information for a longer period of time) you'll see 249 deaths and 7,153 reported cases (or 3.5% rate of death). Another (perhaps better) estimate of the case fatality rate (CFR) would be to use only cases with known outcomes. In that case, the results are much more dramatic with the provinces reporting deaths showing from 10-100% CFR. Provinces that showing no deaths aren't showing many recoveries either. Hubei stands at about 60% CFR if you only look at known outcomes.
SARS, when all was said and done, had a CFR of around 15%. China reported a dramatically lower (around 9%) number of dubious origin. The Spanish Flu was somewhere around 3%. This is worse and I highly doubt China would've quarantined folks so quickly if this were as minor as a flu pandemic. It's nice to think that things are just that much worse in China, however I think it's just a matter of time. Japan didn't even bother quarantining the passengers on the repatriation flight.
There's not a ton of contrast, but the grey provinces are not reporting outcomes, the nearly white ones are reporting recoveries with no deaths. Well apparently not being able to post URLs includes not being able to attach images. I digress…
The point I wanted to make, using examples of very early estimates (mostly by WHO and US CDC) is twofold. First, the evidence to date suggests that transmission control of this disease is going to be very difficult and widespread epidemics, even a pandemic, are likely and possible, respectively. Second, early indicators suggest that the health consequences for populations, generally, don't so far appear catastrophic. That would be true whether case mortality is <2% or ~4%. Obviously, even those numbers would be of serious concern.
Just an aside on the apparently-higher percentage of fatalities in Hubei: The statistics reflect only those cases that are known to health officials. With a disease that, in most cases, doesn't cause alarming symptoms, a very large percentage of infections typically escapes diagnosis. Assuming that 2019-NCov fits that pattern, the case mortality, overall, is likely lower than official statistics indicate.