“Less than 2% infected actually die from it.”
IN third world countries where the flu death rate is also very high.
It’s not 2% in 3rd world countries. It’s 3.5% of those listed as sick have died so far. In a spreading infection, it is not very meaningful except trivially as a ratio between how fast it infects and how fast it kills.
It’s 50% of those who have gotten sick have recovered.
It’s 17% of those resolved died outside of China and Iran - which is slightly up since last Tuesday. (In General, takes longer to recover than to die). 21% if you also remove Singapore and Hong Kong as being part of China.
The death rates are going to go down, and there are reports that cohort studies show mortality rates of 3.2-4.5%.