[VBL SC #7380] Corona is slechts een griepje.

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According to the latest data, more than 100,000 cases of COVID-19 around the world have been confirmed, resulting in 3,408 deaths so far. Simple math yields the 3.4 percent death rate cited by Dr. Tedros.

If that's the right figure, then we're headed toward Spanish flu death rates. But before dousing yourself continually with Purell, note that the critical caveat is "reported" COVID-19 cases. Most experts believe the number of unreported cases is large. So far it appears that at least 80 percent of infected people exhibit mild or even no symptoms, and thus are unlikely to have come in contact with medical surveillance systems.

The fact that the U.S. lags in testing for the virus means that public health officials do not have a good idea of just how many Americans are already infected. That makes it difficult to estimate the disease's real mortality rate. In contrast, South Korea has been more aggressive, testing more than 140,000 people for the virus. Doctors there have confirmed more than 6,000 cases, yielding a fatality rate of 0.6 percent.

Interestingly, if the estimate that as many as 1,500 cases are currently undetected in Washington state, the 14 deaths (8 of whom were residents of the Life Care nursing home) reported there yields a case-fatality rate of just over 0.9 percent. Aboard the once quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship, 707 passengers contracted the illness and so far 6 have died, yielding a death rate of 0.85 percent. That rate is unlikely to be representative, since COVID-19 is much riskier for older people and the ages of cruise passengers skew older.

A new report by researchers in Hong Kong estimate a symptomatic case-fatality rate of 1.4 percent. This is considerably lower than the WHO's 3.4 percent death rate. And again, it does not account for infected folks whose symptoms are mild or absent.