From the article:
Thus, the Chinese virus is six times more fatal than pre-existing viral pneumonias, including those caused by flu.
Lepton: Based upon what? Certainly not the posted article, but perhaps you have another reference?
I've been following the total case number and new daily infection count at these two sites
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
When I say more contagious, that's based on having read that typical annual flu cases are around 200K, and we might be at 800K by the time we finish this. "Less lethal" because people are saying this has a fatality rate of somewhere between 1-5%, and we lose 40K of those 200K flu cases annually, according to what I've read. Not vouching for those stats, but no specific reason to doubt them.