TL DR - Everyone is guessing. I am guessing that we are not living through an end of times zombie virus apocalypse movie. I am certain that we will have an interesting story to tell our grandkids - either about a great die-off of the human population, or the time when everyone simply lost their minds.
Newbie here, and not a scientist. But, it would seem that there is a problem with calculating the current mortality rates, and then comparing that to historic or even seasonal outbreaks of disease.
Let’s take SARS and MERS. These occurred in the very recent past, so we have relatively precise measurements and understanding. These were very extreme diseases with few “mild” or asymptotic expressions; there was little doubt about who died from it (the numerator) and who had contracted it (the denominator). Calculating the mortality rate is pretty straightforward.
Take the annual flu next. We don’t have precise numbers of how many people contract it since most people don’t bother going to the doctor, but we have enough historical information that we can estimate the number of total cases from the rates of people who are found to have it at doctor visits (bad season means more doctor trips and positive tests). And death rates can again be compared against historical numbers. So while not precise, our estimates of flu mortality rates are probably pretty good.
What about the Spanish Flu? Trickier. The estimates for the number of people who died and who were infected vary wildly. But clearly the number of deaths were statistically much higher than normal, so we can say the Spanish Flu season was much worse than a seasonal flu. How much worse? Keep in mind this started near the end of WW1 and spread on the battlefield under less than ideal sanitary and medical conditions, and the large numbers of infected soldiers then went home and rapidly spread it. Lots of things contributed to the infection rates and mortality. But let’s agree - it definitely was worse than the average seasonal flu.
What about Covid-19? It is hard to miss extra deaths in a community, particularly when they display specific symptoms. I do not know if we are ascribing to Coronavirus any specific deaths from the regular flu but let’s grant the cause of death as being known. That’s the numerator. What about the denominator? That’s the problem right now. If, and it is a big if, the quoted stats are close to accurate and that at least 80% of cases present with very mild symptoms and probably will never be counted, we can not currently get a handle on the denominator. We could be calculating not the mortality rates of the disease, but the mortality rate of the WORST hit with the disease. I suspect that Covid-19 will stick around for a long, long time. And in time we will have reasonably good estimates of its mortality. We will even be able to look it up on Wikipedia in a few years. But now? It’s all a guessing game. The numbers today vary so widely you can pick whichever data set you want to make the point you want to make. This is confirmation bias heaven.
Oh, and why is Covid-19 spreading so much faster and killing so many more people than SARS and MERS? For the very reason that it is not as fatal a disease. SARS and MERS killed off their hosts too efficiently, reducing the spread. Being milder, Covid-19 does its damage by killing off a far smaller percentage of a far larger population. Doesn’t mean that Covid-19 is a more dangerous disease to individuals, but it is to larger populations.
Bottom line? Everyone is guessing. I am guessing that we are not living through an end of times zombie virus apocalypse movie. I am certain that we will have an interesting story to tell our grandkids - either about a great die-off of the human population, or the time when everyone simply lost their minds.