Public health officials say the novel coronavirus is less deadly than SARS, which killed about 10 percent of people who were infected during the outbreak that began in 2002. But epidemiologists are still trying to determine exactly how deadly covid-19 is.
About 2 percent of reported cases have been fatal, but many experts say the death rate could be lower. That’s because early in an outbreak, mild illnesses may not be reported. If only people with severe illness — who are more likely to die — seek care, the virus will appear much more deadly than it really is because of all the uncounted people with milder symptoms.
Similar to other respiratory illnesses, older people and those with illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure are at increased risk. Early studies have also suggested men are at greater risk.
But, as with other diseases, there can be tremendous individual variation in how people respond. There will be people with known risk factors who recover as well as people who develop severe cases for reasons we don’t understand.
There’s also no evidence that children are more prone to contracting covid-19, according to the CDC, and that was also the case with the disease′s cousins, SARS and MERS.