This whole thing stinks to high heaven. At most so far 59 people have died, with most of them being in one nursing home in Kirkland WA. The media is fear mongering harder than ever to make orange man look bad. Schools and businesses are closing which is sure to send us into recession if not worse. Out of 330,000,000 people, 59 have died in the US and everything is screeching to a halt. Something isn't right here but it's fucking everything up. The economy was the best it's ever been in the history of our country and now everything is going to shit because of less than 100 deaths. More people probably die each year from skiing accidents. This is un fucking believable.
EDIT: I'm not saying this is a total hoax. I'm saying the media overreaction is making things way worse than they have to be. Panicking is never going to make anything better. If this is truly as bad as some of you are saying, I hope it justifies sending our economy into great depression 2 Corona boogaloo
10x may be a bit exaggerated due to the lack of testing. The limited tests were focused on the severely ill and at-risk. As more testing is done I believe that this rate will drop.
10x is the low estimate - it is being realized in countries that were able to contain their outbreaks below the capacity of their hospitals. In countries where the hospitals are overwhelmed, the fatality rate is averaging around 30x more lethal than the flu.
The rough breakdown is 80% mild symptoms - rest and recover at home. 15% severe symptoms - need hospitalization. 5% critical symptoms - need ICU care.
Of the critical cases that require an ICU, about 1 in 5 die no matter what. The prognosis for the other 4 depends on the availability of ICU care. If there are enough ventilators, enough monitors, enough doctors, enough nurses - most of them will recover. If there are not enough, most of them will die.
Spez - in case it wasn't obvious the flu death rate is about 0.1%, 10x is 1% which corresponds to the "1 in 5" of the 5% of critical cases. 30x corresponds to just over half of that same critical 5% dying.
Also, the people who survive do not appear to be "just fine" when they recover. We don't know the long term yet, but the people who require ventilation are fucked up by it and could be crippled for years or for life.