Alexa says 0.6%. ;-)
I think you need to divide the dead by the number of cases (not the dead by the recovered rate).
Those death numbers would be wonderful if true for all countries.
Perhaps I should not have used the official term “CFR”.
But the question I’m interested in is this: “If I get this disease, what are the chances I’ll die from it?” Since we don’t know how all those who currently have the disease will ultimately resolve, the best answer we have comes from all those cases where the disease has run it’s course, expressed in this equation:
Number of Deaths / Number of Resolved Cases
or, alternatively
Number of Deaths / (Number of Deaths + Number of Recoveries)
Because of their policy of testing asymptomatic people, South Korea seems to be showing us that the virus is FAR more widespread than previously thought, and when those mild cases are taken into account, it is much less deadly. SK has only 52 "serious cases" out of over 6,500, while Italy has almost 9X that number with significantly fewer confirmed cases. If Italy were to test as SK is doing, they would likely find 5X-10X more cases. I'm sure the epidemiologists have some equation that makes the difference even greater, because serious cases are always found, while mild cases are only discovered if the person is tested.
So, the upside is that mortality is lower, but the down side is that a lot more people are actually infected and have a mild or asymptomatic case. This might indicate the R0 is higher than 2.3. CDC's stated strategy from early on has been to slow down the virus, not stop it. Despite having the highest number of infections per capita of any country, SK seems to be winning that battle, or at least they are not completely overwhelmed. The question is, can WE win that battle? Because even 0.6% sucks if the virus is unchecked. Like SK, we need to aggressively attack every outbreak. That and a little progress on the treatment side would help.