A 20% death rate is highly unlikely.The Italian researchers who sequenced the Italian strain believe that the virus has been circulating widely in Italy since January, even before Italy banned direct air flight to China. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that almost all the new cases in Europe are originating from big Italian cities. If the death rate was 20% we should start to see a lot of death in Italy and it doesn't seem to be the case. Iran and Egypt also seems to be largely hit, as many tourist back from Egypt have been infected. Now getting the real death rate is going to be a very complicated game, especially if many infected patient remain without symptom. I tend to believe the virus is already highly circulating in a high number of place of the planet where the health system is bad, and lacking testing capabilities. We are even starting to see untraceable cases in the USA.

Caveat: some of the "untraceable" cases are kind of "semi-traceable" in practice. The American government (against the advice of its own CDC) flew back American patients who had been on the Japanese cruise ship, infected and uninfected alike, and sent in HHS employees to interact with them, with inadequate training and hazard protections (i.e., no bunny suits).

This heightened infection risk for the uninfected cruise ship patients and the HHS employees, as well as anybody who knew them.

This plane landed at Travis Air Force Base in Solano County, California. Which is where the first "untraceable" case in the United States occurred.

You're mixing up two different evacuations. The whistleblower complaint about HHS employees with inadequate training processing evacuees was about the Wuhan evacuation, not the Diamond Princess one. Only about three of the Wuhan evacuees ever ended up testing positive for the virus, there's no reason to believe they were even infectious when flown back and none of the staff involved have shown signs of COVID-19. It's certainly possible that one of the people involved in the quarantine didn't follow precautions and was infected, even with full training, but I don't think there's any evidence tying the California case to it.

OK — I did conflate Wuhan and Diamond Princess, so thanks for correcting me there, but according to both Time and the Washington Post, HHS employees were sent (without proper training or protection) to meet with evacuees in each case:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/27/us-workers-...

https://time.com/5792135/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-emplo...

I keep hearing about this- is there a source for this? Or drumf is inolved so must be true?

If a large population of infected people never show symptoms, you'd see a lot more untraceable cases in Singapore, who are doing tracing very well.

But if you look at their reports there are practically no untraceable cases. That suggests to me that there are not many cases without symptoms.

As long as you have enough intensive care units with a lung ventilator that 1-2 % might be correct. But 10% develop pneumonia and require ventilation. If only about 10% of the population gets infected the health system would be overwhelmed. After that, even a simple flu might become a live threating experience.

The 2% mortality rate of the coronavirus is likely greatly overestimated [1]. Early mortality rates of diseases are generally estimated to be too high because only severe cases are tested. The exact same happened with H1N1 (Swine Flu): initial studies showed a 2-3% case fatality rate, but afterwards it was found to have an actual mortality rate of around 0.15% [2], close to that of the flu at 0.1%.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21134718/coronavirus-china-dea...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

So, should we even care if the actual rate is merely 50% above your regular flu? Is this 0.15% one winter/year or across several seasons?

It is still speculated to be more contagious than the flu, and the flu itself is no joke. Many people will die if the coronavirus gets out of control. However, it is certainly not the end of the world others are claiming either. Being aware of it and taking certain precautions (e.g. washing your hands more often and staying home if you feel sick) is a good idea.

It should also be noted that they did not have antibiotics back then. The Spanish flu today would have most likely a lower fatality rate than it had then.

Obviously those diseases are viral. But it seems that they can be helped by bacteria and certainly bacterial pneumonia is a common serious complication, and I believe that patients hospitalised for COVID-19 are given antibiotics for these reasons.

The spanish flu would probably have been much less severe if it didn't happen right after WWI. Basic supplies for food and soap were not yet at their pre WWI levels and the population was still weaker and physically recovering from the war.

WWI started 10 months after the Spanish flu.

Press censorship did also contribute to its spread.

Huh, what? WWI started on 28-07-1914 and ended 11-11-1918 while the spanish flu started around january 1918.

That's an additional aspect, yes.

20 percent? Where? Most people are not even tested and in China where they have the largest hospital facilities for treating patients the number is far lower than 20 percents.

That comment was about the 1918 influenza pandemic.