Infectivity, JHU stats and mortality estimates

Johns Hopkins is keeping track of COVID-19 cases internationally, in real time, here.

There have been 51,171 recovered cases and 3,254 deceased, for a 6% mortality rate.  This number should drop, I hope considerably, as we begin to identify more asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases.

Update 3/16/20:  Chinese mortality estimate is around 5.8%.

One hopeful piece of information is that spread has been mostly within families...suggesting infection requires a large inoculum size (a large number of viral particles) and may therefore be considerably less contagious for those with only casual contact with cases.  We hope.

Update 3/5/20:  Spread might be high within families because they have genetic markers in common that either promote infection or lead to more severe infection.