I’m no epidemiologist, but wouldn’t the fatality rate in the beginning of an epidemic be much lower than later on because all the advanced care, medical equipment, and healthy doctors and nurses is available and concentrated on few patients?
As the system gets more and more loaded, there is less and less care for each individual patient until you reach the triage point where the oldest and weakest patients get zero care.
Even the oldest people on Diamond Princess got the best available care in the hospitals. Today, the oldest infected Italians are told “there’s nothing we can do for you. Enjoy your slow death.”
The oldest people on the Diamond Princess were at least healthy enough to go on a Cruise. The oldest people in the nursing home in Washington State and in Italy may have been bedridden people with very frail bodies functioning at a low level. A freeeper who has been in the WA nursing home reported that it had quite a few very sick people there.