As large quantities of deaths fail to appear in Italy or anywhere else outside of China, there is some reason to at least begin to suspect that the potential danger from Corona-chan has been significantly exaggerated:
An editorial published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine speculated that the coronavirus currently causing panic in world markets could turn out no worse than “a severe seasonal influenza” in terms of mortality.
Citing an analysis of the available data from the outbreak in China, the authors note that there have been zero cases among children younger than 15; and that the fatality rate is 2{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} at most, and could be “considerably less than 1{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3}.”
Those who have died have been elderly or were already suffering from another illness — as with ordinary flu. The underlying data suggest that the symptoms varies, and fewer than one in six of the cases reported were “severe.”
The authors note that coronavirus looks to be much less severe than other recent outbreaks of respiratory illnesses:
[T]he overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3}) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} and 36{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3}, respectively.
The vast majority of patients recover, and among those who are hospitalized, the median stay thus far is 12 days.
Alternatively, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine may be heavily invested in the equity markets and are looking for a dead cat bounce to shed the remainder of their stocks. At this point, virtually no one outside of China actually knows anything.