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I think most doctors make it a point to instill calm in their patients. And, the nature of their work is that they have likely dealt with emergency situations and dying patients, so they have seen the worst and have to have a way to handle these things. So they are coming from a different position than you, perhaps (maybe, maybe not).

Symptom-wise, as far as I can tell, COVID-19 can be similar to the flu. Especially for most people, who may not have much in the way of symptoms. So your doctor isn't wrong per se. But yes, the deadliness of the virus is much higher, unfortunately. So it is not quite similar in intensity, and it is a serious thing.

"Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died"

The keyword here is reported. We don't know how many unreported cases there are, it could be 10x the reported ones. In the US it's much more than that, given that almost nobody has been tested. We have 9 deaths so far and probably thousands of infected people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_coronavirus_outbreak#/...

Also, the death rate is 1.6% outside of China

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_coronavirus_outbreak#D...