A couple of hours ago VP Pence, Gov. Jay Inslee, and several CDC leaders spoke here in Washington.Leaving aside the boorish anti-Trump comments of Gov. Inslee and a couple of reporters, there were two very important facts released.
(1) In South Korea, where testing has been rather broad, there are a lot of people with the virus without symptoms. Of course, this reduces the death rate, which South Koreans estimate at no more than 0.5% and falling as more testing is done. China was not open in its test results and guessed 1.5-2.5% on the basis of an unknown testing universe.
(2) As for the death rate in Italy, the question is who is dying. Since most of the deaths seem to be in small villages in Lombardy, I guessed it is very old people. (There is also that (Chinese?) restaurant in Bergamo where “all” the Chinese staff have corona.) And it is true: the median age of people who have died in Italy is 82, and, I suspect, with the usual comorbidities.
So, good news. (The local news orcs missed the significance of these facts)
First the kids are alright. Second, almost everyone will be alright. Third, by and large only the very old and already sick are at risk. (In Washington the govt is saying people over 60 should not go out, but are people in their sixties really that old?)
However, Iran remains an outlier and good data from there is scarce.