0.98% seems to assume your medical system doesn't get overloaded:

> evidence to date points toward 2019-nCoV having the potential to have comparable severity to the 1918 flu pandemic in the absence of effective control and treatment, when averaged across all ages.

Early detection and isolation is key. Much of the world seems to be doing a poor job of it, and that is what is causing people to be concerned.

Just curious, what is the mortality rate of the regular flu for young healthy people?

For US adults ages 18-49, it varies (depending on the severity of flu strains) between .01% and .02%.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2016-2017.html

.2% if you are 30, .2% is greater than your cumulative risk from driving. It's a huge risk.

Thanks! That's interesting. I suspected there's a methodological flaw in assuming actual death rates from the sample of detected cases who died.

We need this voice of reason. Otherwise we're just panicking.