Here comes the fear mongering. We are far better equipped to handle epidemics and pandemics now than 100 years ago.
Administrating the test for it is both expensive, and time consuming, so the gross number of known infections is likely to be substantially underreported because of selection bias (why run expensive RNA analysis on a blood sample if the person is having mild cold symptoms?). There are probably a bunch of other confounding factors, such as most people getting it are probably asymptomatic or just think they have a typical cold/flu. It also appears to be non-lethal to children, as opposed to seasonal influenza.
In simple gross numbers, more people die in car accidents every day than the current worldwide totality for this virus. Comparing against US CDC stats, it isn't even remotely close to statistical estimates for flu deaths so far this year in the US alone(~16k).
My suspicion is if you concede that gross numbers of COVID19 infections are substantially underreported, the death rates fall into line with typical flu, maybe marginally worse.
The reasonable response to this is what people should already be doing for influenza: practice good hygiene, stay home if you're sick, take caution when interacting with at risk populations to minimize their exposure, etc.
WHO's clickbait ten tips for conoravirus include statements such as "Most people will have mild disease and get better without needing any special care." [1]
If you read the stuff they've been publishing, you'll get quotes such as "Most people infected with COVID-19 virus have mild disease and recover. Approximately 80% of laboratory confirmed patients have had mild to moderate disease, which includes non-pneumonia and pneumonia cases", and "Recognize that COVID-19 is a new and concerning disease, but that outbreaks can managed with the right response and that the vast majority of infected people will recover;" [2]
They also discuss how we're already seeing the death ratio dropping substantially, and treatment is being improved: "In China, the overall CFR was higher in the early stages of the outbreak (17.3% for cases with symptom onset from 1-10 January) and has reduced over time to 0.7% for patients with symptom onset after 1 February (Figure 4). The Joint Mission noted that the standard of care has evolved over the course of the outbreak." [2]
CDC publications and announcements follow similar sentiments.
Edit: adding NEJM quote that supports my assumption about sampling issues: "We found a lower case fatality rate (1.4%) than the rate that was recently reportedly, probably because of the difference in sample sizes and case inclusion criteria. Our findings were more similar to the national official statistics, which showed a rate of death of 3.2% among 51,857 cases of Covid-19 as of February 16, 2020. Since patients who were mildly ill and who did not seek medical attention were not included in our study, the case fatality rate in a real-world scenario might be even lower. Early isolation, early diagnosis, and early management might have collectively contributed to the reduction in mortality in Guangdong." [3]
[1] https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-diretor-general-s...
[2] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-chi...
Also am I reading that correctly that they are including pneumonia in the "mild or moderate" category?
I'm not sure where you're getting "no big deal" from, I never said or implied anything of the sort. It appears to be comparable to influenza, which is serious and warrants a serious response, but not cause for any panic. Flu already poses a serious risk to the elderly, yet we don't see widespread panic year over year.
Mild pneumonia is also known as atypical/walking pneumonia. In the source material they state that they classify mild pneumonia as a moderate infection. See figure 5. Most cases of atypical pneumonia don't require hospitalization, as the primary characteristics are just cold symptoms that don't go away in a week.
We're going to start seeing more data coming out of South Korea in the coming weeks that is likely to be far more reliable than what the CCP would show. Currently the fatality rate appears to be ~0.5% and trending downward. [1]
[1] https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=00...
As for sources, if you look in the thread I respond citing WHO, NEJM, KCDC, etc as evidence for my assertions/assumptions.
As crude as it sounds there haven’t been that many deaths. Yes this seems to have outbreaks in waves but that’s about the only scary part.
We should be alert but not anxious!