[masayoshis_son]

Death rates will be lower than in Hubei if not a lot of people become infected at the same time elsewhere but is this really a safe assumption to make, given what we already know about the disease's high infectivity?

Since deaths are trailing the onset of symptoms by as much as 20 days, what we are seeing now are the outcomes of people who became sick in the end of January.

Even a death rate of "just" 1% (as you quoted) is still 10-20 times that of a particularly bad flu (0.1-0.2%), so by no means the two are equivalent.

Situation will become clearer as more data is available in the next couple of weeks but that is no reason to ignore what we know thus far. It's not about panic or overreaction but making an informed choice, for example for those of us who have scheduled travel to the region, and need to decide whether or not to postpone it.

These comments from Marc Lipsitch (Harvard epidemiologist) are quite informative: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1228373884027592704.html

[irq11]

You cannot compare point estimates of “death rates”, as you’re trying to do. Taken together, the totality of evidence outside of Hubei suggests that this is a very mild illness, on par with the common cold, for non-vulnerable populations.

Stop fear-mongering.