That is assuming that we have an accurate read on the total number of cases. The actual number of cases (the denominator) is likely much higher and comprised mainly of people who are asymptomatic or those who are showing minor symptoms, all of whom have not been tested. This will drive the actual fatality rate lower. It would also be intellectually honest of the media to report that the majority of the deaths are of those who were elderly and/or those who had existing health issues.
Anecdotal - I know - but, I doubt that Tom Hanks and his wife are in hospice care or critical condition right now. The media has everyone believing that if you test positive for the virus, it is an automatic death sentence, thereby creating this panic we have now.
I am going with the South Korea numbers because they have tested 260,000 people and their daily “new case rate” is dropping so their denominator is about the best we have...their “running/approx.” fatality rate is the 0.83%.
Everything I have looked at shows that COVID-19 gets to viral pneumonia much easier/faster than “regular flu”, thus leading to more serious/hospitalized/intubated & ventilated older patients. The younger crowd (80%) can have minor or no symptoms, which sounds good, but actually makes the epidemic worse because they are shedding the virus but think they are OK to go visit grandma & grandpa.
Tom Hanks is in pre-production in rural Queensland, Australia and caught COVID-19 when ALL of Australia had 128 cases reported...shows you the lack of testing (Australia & USA) can really throw off the denominator.
In many reports in the past about flu in the USA, they report deaths per 100,000. Deaths are reported by law, so it would be a fairly accurate number. The average for flu was about 14 per 100,100 per year. At this point we have about 42 deaths per 330,000,000.
It isn’t over yet, but for now that works out to about .0001 per 100K.