I think we're seeing a small case study of this in the nursing home in Washington. Out of 120 residents, 13 are dead and have been identified with COVID-19. There were 11 more who died at the nursing home since Feb 19 and haven't been tested, but they said on average 3-6 residents die per month. I think the nursing home scenario is probably a worst case given both age and underlying health concerns (unlike elderly still living in their own home or with their families). Given the Seattle area medical infrastructure, this fatality rate can't be explained by overloading of our facilities.

I really disliked Fauci's comments that "the risk is low" to the American population, pointing to the rate of infection. He hedges this with some hand waving that it could change at any moment. I thought it was irresponsible to say the risk is low when they hadn't done any real testing and we've actually got outbreaks like in Kirkland. Regarding his comment that the WHO fatality rate is too high because of asymptomatic population and the denominator in reality is much higher. Fine. But he doesn't acknowledge that the numerator might be much higher as well. How many 80+ year olds, especially those with preexisting conditions, die and are assumed to have just passed from old age and the preexisting conditions. It is a characteristic of this virus that the people getting killed are the most likely ones not to raise huge red flags early. So in general, I would've preferred him to not say anything about risk until we actually get more numbers and real testing within our population. The average fatality rate hides the fact that this virus is very dangerous to the elderly.