WHO 19/2/2020 situation report reports that the Chinese recovered death rate is 2.3%. This drops to 0.9% (which is about the same overall death rate for flu so this is x2.5 times more deadly) for the under 50's where it starts to climb to about 14% in the over 80's. Chronic conditions make a massive difference with heart problems top at 10% fatality rate, followed by diabetes at 7%, COPD at 6%, then hypertension. Poo, pooing statistics is fine until you, your families & friends start being one of them and then it gets personal. If you have heart problems, diabetes issues, COPD, kidney problems or hypertension all of these chronic conditions can be made significantly worse with a very reduced rest of life, quality of life if you survive.
Iran's death rate is currently running at 14-15% which suggests there a x5 to x10 more people infected than they have reported.
What it will do is affect people's jobs, incomes, create shortages of food, medicines & lots of other essential items, so expect to take a hit on your quality of life for the next year or 2 or 3 until it is under control. SARs took almost 3 years to eradicate & only involved 8-9,000 people & was much more difficult to catch although the WHO fatality rate was at 14.5%. MERS is very difficult to catch from camels but kills 34% of those infected. At best the first vaccines will become available in 2021 which will then start to help to eradicate it.
The whole idea of the Governments self-isolation policy is not to stop its spread but the rate it is spread, so the NHS is not overwhelmed with the number of pneumonia cases which if they run out of assisted respiratory systems it will push up the mortality rate. The gaussian distribution will have a much, much longer Y time axis, but a much lower backend loaded pneumonia cases peak. The leading experts all think we are beyond the will it become a global pandemic to which countries will do better controlling it than others?
The majority on here are over 50, many with chronic conditions, so be lucky & use basic hygiene procedures like washing your hands regularly with warm soapy water, do touch your face & eyes with dirty hands & used alcohol based sanitisers when available. If you get it then control the spraying of the virus with paper tissues when coughing or sneezing.
That it an escaped bio weapon, is an out & out conspiracy theory as the weapon & antidote are developed together, so you can protect the 'good side' which infecting the 'bad one'. Where the rural Chinese live in their houses with their domesticated animals & will trade in markets & eat any domesticated or wild animals including: dogs, cats, badgers, bats, crivets, snakes, rats, mice (eating baby mice live is considered a delicacy!). The last 3 global diseases that have jumped species in China: pigs->humans swine flu, bats->humans SARS & 93% chance bats->humans Covid-19.