Not sure if you are being facetious. Live attenuated vaccines are used frequently and are literally the first vaccines (smallpox) we had. Measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox are all live attenuated viral vaccines (for example).
Yes, it is not possible to determine the mortality rate with any accuracy.
As you point out the rate could be much lower than the confirmed cases may indicate since many cases may be mild and go unreported. On the other hand, there can be a time delay of a week or more between showing symptoms and death. The number of reported cases a week ago was much smaller, so the mortality rate may be higher than the current figures would indicate.
One disturbing report is that infection may be possible during the incubation period before there are clear symptoms:
Mortality rate (more accurately case fatality rate, but it’s quicker to type mortality rate) could only be lower if prevalence is actually higher than reported.
Mortality rate is deaths due to disease divided by disease prevalence. When the Wuhan coronavirus was first discovered it was in a relatively isolated population. Deaths and prevalence were simpler to calculate. As the virus has spread, deaths remained easy to calculate, but prevalence became much more difficult. That’s why it appears as if the mortality rate has increased. This phenomenon was seen with SARS where it looked as if there was increasing virulence until better screening and testing resulted in more accurate prevalence numbers.
Right now this remains a somewhat novel coronavirus with a higher virulence than your run of the mill coronavirus but nowhere near SARS or MERS. Until widespread screening or mandatory testing take place, prevalence will be underestimated leading to falsely high mortality rates. Except for one outlier that I know of (healthy 36 year old male), virtually all of the death have been in the elderly with significant pre-existing conditions. This is also typical of a relatively low virulence strain.
Here is a nice recent article that seems to avoid hysterics.
This infographic gives a good perspective on the virulence of this strain in comparison to other transmissible diseases.
The good news, it’s partially done.
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Wondering what made MERS so deadly? That was airborne unlike Ebola and Nipah.
Not been to Louisville or St. Louis, have you?
Bubonic plague has always been with us…the rodents in the mountains.
insert snarky, one-liner response to FlameHeart here
The question is whether the new virus will continue to spread at a rapid rate and become a worldwide epidemic similar to flu.
For example, the CDC shows 9.3 to 45 million US cases of flu each year with 16000 to 61000 deaths. That is gives a death rate of about .1 to .2%.
If the new virus were to infect a similar number of people as flu does, the number of US deaths could be several hundred thousand. Fortunately, viruses usually evolve to become less virulent as they become more widespread.
I’m totally serious. Have you ever been to Louisvill or St. Louis? They are pretty slummy with feces…and living in California for a long time, I know that the mountain parks have had signs warning of B. plague from the ground rodents forever. 
Mortality rate is 2.8%. As cases increase, so will deaths. Doesn’t mean its getting worse.
That’s actually decreasing. 30 hours ago it was 800 cases and 26 deaths. That’s 3.25% mortality.
The mortality rate is roughly 10 to 30 times what we see for typical flu strains.
In my opinion, the biggest risk to the US is that a weakened version of the virus will become a global pandemic. China is clearly taking the threat very seriously, but it difficult to say what the outcome will be at his point.
No, that would be RMSF which is of major concern in the mountains and it’s very rare to see it in humans unless they catch or otherwise handle an infected ground squirrel or other rodent high in the Rockies.
The Wuhan CV is just getting started and it’s only been known for about a month.
We don’t need hysterics but we certainly need common sense and to give it the appropriate level of concern along with taking appropriate precautions to limit it’s spread.
The bigger concern would be that it takes several years to become less virulent. While uncertain at this point it appears to have a fairly long latency period which makes it even harder to contain because of asymptomatic carriers traveling.
I was in Louisville a few months back on business it didn’t seem so bad. Of course I didn’t tour the whole city we went to 4th street and spent sometime on Main Street. It reminded of Nashville without the country music. I was in St. Louis a few year ago and I didn’t even leave the hotel room, after all the riots and stuff had happened just went straight from the airport to hotel to work back to airplane then gone can’t comment on what St. Louis is like 
Angel Island hasn’t been used as an immigration station in 80 years.
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I agree with common sense and precautions. There is nothing wrong with either of those. I guess all I’ve been trying to say so far is that there is no cause for some of the overreaction I’ve seen and heard in the media.
UPDATE:
81 deaths and 2800 confirmed cases in China
Experts in Hong Kong are saying “draconian” travel restrictions are necessary to prevent a worldwide epidemic.
5 confirmed cases in the US; US State Department has issued a new travel advisory to the whole country to “Level 3: Reconsider Travel”.
I talked to colleague with family in China, and it sounds like the whole country is taking the situation very seriously. People are avoiding any kind of gatherings and going out only for groceries or other necessities. Factories and schools are extending the Chinese New Year’s holiday.
For details see:
