Covid-19 crisis What does "mild" really mean?
From New York Times

What does ‘mild’ really mean?
I caught up with Donald G. McNeil Jr., our infectious-diseases reporter, to ask what it’s actually like to contract the coronavirus, based on what we’ve learned so far from China, which has the vast majority of confirmed cases.

What does this illness look like? I’ve heard some people compare it to the flu.
No, it’s different from flu. It’s a lung disease, not a stuffy nose disease. Ninety 90 percent of people get a fever, 80 percent get a dry cough, and then it drops down to 30 percent get shortness of breath and malaise — you know, being tired.
A runny nose only shows up in 4 percent, and that may be people who also happen to have a cold or flu, too.

OK, we’ve been told that 80 percent of cases are “mild.” But you said that can include pneumonia?
Yes. Chinese health officials define “mild” as a positive test, fever, shortness of breath, and possibly even pneumonia, but not so bad that you need to be hospitalized. Once you need oxygen, then you go over into the severe category.

What are we learning about asymptomatic cases?
The good news is that a large study from China suggests that less than 1 percent of cases are asymptomatic. Almost all people get sick. But that means that the real fatality rate is something like the fatality rate you see outside of Hubei province, which is between 1 and 2 percent. That’s definitely not good news.

That said, once there’s an antibody test, maybe we’ll get different data.

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