Some people claim #SARSCoV2 is much more widespread than we think and not so dangerous after all. While it is true that #COVID19 cases and deaths are underreported, keep in mind that:

1. Infection fatality is about 1%
2. many places haven't seen much #COVIDー19 yet

How do we know? Some places have been hit very hard by COVID19. In Bergamo, as many people have died in 3 weeks as would normally die in 6 months. This corresponds to 0.5-1% of the population. Even if everybody was infected, this suggests at least 0.5% infection fatality.

Across Europe and the US, COVID19 is causing excess mortality. The graphs below are for Switzerland, the UK, and Spain.

But many of these deaths have been concentrated in specific parts of these countries. In Italy, almost all deaths have been in the North with little change in mortality in the South. The other comparison is for Madrid and Murcia.

Hence numbers aggregated by country can be very misleading and mask the severity of #COVID19 in heavily affected communities. A community doing well is likely due to at most a few percent having been infected so far. More viral spread means more morbidity.