[endorphone]

"As a comparison, Germany has a <2% fatality rate"

Germany's good numbers may not hold.

20 days ago Germany had 7256 cases. Italy had 27977.

10 days ago Germany had 37307 cases. Italy had 74383.

0 days ago Germany had 96076 cases. Italy had 124629.

The point being that Germany saw the outbreak take hold considerably after Italy. Italy had a very low original death rate as well -- approximately 2% weeks into the outbreak. This virus takes weeks to kill most of its victims.

14 days ago Germany had a death rate of 0.375%.

7 days ago, Germany had a death to case rate of 0.75%.

Today it's at 1.5%. It has increased every day between.

The fact that Italy is a hyper-social society, while Germany, at least from my probably wrong foreign view, is quite the opposite, probably changed the path of the disease, accelerating its spread in Italy.

[endorphone]

Germany is up to 1.76% now.

[marcinzm]

Yes, as the infection spreads testing becomes overwhelmed and the apparent fatality rate goes up. A recent trial found that in one German town the actual fatality rate was 0.37%. They did antibody testing so they knew everyone who had been or was infected.

[xenonite]

I am not sure if it’s even possible to give the fatality rate before everything is over because we don’t know if an infected patient eventually dies from the disease with a long delay. This is why I totally expect a growing fatality rate now.