Originally Posted by
OldnGrounded
No, no and no. There is exactly no credible evidence or analysis to support fatality rates anywhere near those percentages. And the gross numbers of cases you cite are ridiculously low. As of two hours ago, the South China Morning Post reported a total of just over 9,000 confirmed cases in Hubei, with about 1,100 becoming seriously ill and around 450 currently critically ill. The China-wide case total is reported as 14,380 and total deaths as 304. All of those numbers will keep changing, rapidly, of course.
Hubei is currently reporting 9,074 confirmed cases, 294 deaths, and 215 recovered patients. At the high end that puts the CFR around 58% if you only look at known outcomes, at the low end at 3.2% if you don't with much of that depending on how accurate you think that the reporting on case outcomes is accurate. If you believe that there are a significant amount of infected persons who simply never see serious symptoms and either don't seek medical advice or are turned away then sure 3.2% seems reasonable. I don't believe that the CCP would quarantine so many people so quickly if they were looking at something near the severity of the H1N1 flu. Nor do I believe that there's a mass of people whose symptoms are so minor that they're not being counted.
I don't think that a 50-60% CFR will prove to be accurate, even with deaths lagging by a few weeks, but I suspect it will be in the double digits (and likely higher than SARS which was around 15%).