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.
The difference is that in Korea, China, and other countries, their Coronavirus tests produces results in four hours. This is why they were able finally get on top of it. Here is the US, it can take up to four days to get test results back, and a patient can walk around for a week infecting everybody until they get sick enough to go to the doctor. This is what will cause it to spread like wildfire here. We don't know who has it!
And, for all you out there who think they are too young to get it, the young man here in Frisco, TX, has now infected his wife and three year old daughter.
And, for those of you who think it's no more serious than a cold, this 35 year old healthy looking doctor doesn't seem to be having an easy time of it. And, this guy is a doctor who has instant access to medical care, and not just some Joe who thinks he's walking around with a cold.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/11/doctor-with-coronavirus-shares-daily-symptoms-on-twitter/