On Tuesday, the World Health Organization announced that the mortality rate for the new COVID-19 coronavirus is higher than the original 2.3 percent estimate.
"Globally, about 3.4 percent of reported COVID-19 cases have died; by comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1 percent of those infected," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. "While many people globally have built up immunity to seasonal flu strains, COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity; that means more people are susceptible to infection, and some will suffer severe disease."
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