[gpderetta]

Well, yes, but that's with the extreme measures taken by China. And the spread in Italy doesn't seem close to stopping yet.

Edit: also pneumonia is caused by a large number of causes. If covid-19 killed as much as all respiratory diseases it would already be scary.

[harrier]

Let's look at South Korea. The number of daily cases has been declining for a week. There are currently 7,869 cases there. Let's just say that despite the current trend the number of cases manages to increase to 20,000. That would mean around 0.04% of the population of South Korea would be affected. They currently have a death rate of 0.8% but there are still many active cases. Let's say that doubles to 1.6% which would put it in line with regions of China other than Hubei. If we apply that infection rate and mortality rate to the US population (328,000,000 * .0004 * .016) that gives a total number of deaths of 2,099.

The numbers don't need any mitigating factors but those do exist as well. I don't see South Korea doing anything more extreme than what could be done in the US so that doesn't show the US would be worse. The population density of South Korea is 15x that of the US so that would probably mean the infection rate would be lower in the US. The median age is also higher in South Korea and since this disease affects older people more that would also make the outlook for America better.