I didn't want to downplay the fact that it can be bad. What I meant to say is that this is a respiratory disease virus, and a lot of the stuff it is supposed to cause (according to the press) is actually due to that, not because it is novel.

Even the reported brain infections (neural invasion) aren't a unique feature of this virus, but are recorded as happening with other coronaviruses (the most common ones, not SARS or MERS).