A Little Math

As bad as the Corona Virus must be--and I'm no expert on the subject--I feel compelled to point out a few things that might calm the general panic that had started to set in. Originally the mortality rate was said to be a frightening 2.0%.  I did the math, using the number of reported cases against the number of resultant deaths, and that number seems about right. I also looked up the mortality rate for "the flu" in the United States. It is only between .02% and .04%, more or less.  Much less deadly, it would seem, than the new virus.
However, an article I read said that it is typical for "new" outbreaks to show numbers that are skewed toward a greater percentage of deaths because only the most severe cases are going to be identified and reported. Mild cases of new viruses are often not reported at all, at first, because they may be thought to be the regular flu. So, no one in the medical community really believed, you might say, that 2.0% was accurate, and that the eventual number would ultimately be smaller.
Now, today in the news it was reported that the Chinese province of Hubei--thought to be the epicenter of the new virus--had been using testing procedures that were thought to be invalid, in effect not identifying enough patients with the virus. The criteria were change to include all who exhibited all of the symptoms, regardless of getting a negative result on the test, or having not been tested at all. The number of reported cases jumped nine-fold, but with reported deaths among that group doubling.
I'm no mathematician, but I believe this puts the calculated mortality rate at a new number, with fewer deadly cases per reported survivable cases--now around 0.5%.  Still ugly, but then very close to regular enfluenza-like numbers.
So there are my thoughts on the matter--not a scientific study, as those are too hard.