0.02% would be two deaths in 10,000 infected. If only 2% of infected people were symptomatic, and 1% of them died, that would get you your 0.02%.
Many more than 2% are symptomatic. Your decimal is in the wrong place.
Right now Covid 19 is the most common new infection in the US, and it is more lethal than this year’s flu. You and I and everyone are more likely to die of Covid 19 than the flu, at least this year.
Right now, my area has 1% of the population confirmed infected, probably at least 10 times as many actually infected. I put my own chances of catching and dying of this disease at about 0.3 in the next year. Still a lot higher than my chance of being murdered, I don’t know about yours.
Maybe (maybe) in isolated cases like stupid-run NYC. I’ve quit paying any attention to these mismanaged “hotspots” and look at the overall numbers.
Here in Arkansas, for example, we have been expanding testing (its been pretty slow ramping up, and we have little to no antibody testing yet). But the numbers that we have seen so far since day 1 (aka - the first diagnosed patient) is that even among thsoe who have been tested (up until the last week or so, you had to be symptomatic and/or have confirmed contact with a positive case to even BE tested) - and we have remained between 6-10% of SYMMPTOMATIC people have been positive. AS testing criteria have loosened up, the percentage has decreased to around 1%. Again, we can’t even begin to guess the asymptomatic cases - but based on antibody testing going on all over the country - sometimes up to 50% of a given population show antibodies to this virus.
Let’s look at our prisons... test 500 inmates - 4 positives. Expand to 2000 inmates tested at the facilities with confirmed cases - 4 deaths, and 40-ish positives.
Now - what death rate are you going to play with? The death rate from the overall population? Then 0.02% is still extremely aggressive based on the numbers (as it just is a measure of how many deaths vs. total population, regardless of if they are positive or not).
Death rate for those infected and symptomatic are less than 5% (and closer to an actual number of 2%). IF 1% are infected in your area - and only 2% of symptomatic people die - that adds moves the decimal two places to the left (just as I put).