Q: Question about fatality rate.
GL: Fatality rate is currently being measured only among people who are admitted and confirmed cases. So our best guess - of the hospitalization(?) fatality ratio is 14%. But let me emphasize that is not the CASE fatality ratio and certainly not the INFECTION fatality ratio... which will be much lower.
Q: Why advise draconian measures if so many factors are unknown? Overseas cases are being managed well currently with low fatality?
GL: Fatality ratio during the beginning of an epidemic is usually low. We learned that from SARS. For the first few weeks of SARS the WHO estimated 3-5% case fatality, it turned out to be 17% in HK. That's because of the timespan from infection to symptoms, to hospitalization, to treatment, to recovering or expiring - a full month. A cross-sectional cut will underestimate the true case fatality due to the characteristics of coronavirus (?). Secondly, overseas cases are self-screening for better prognosis (I am heavily paraphrasing that) because if you are very sick you won't travel and you can't pass the thermal screen. To base our actions on those cases which are caught early by thermal scans in otherwise healthy passengers is optimistic.