> I don't believe for a moment that China would've attempted to quarantine 60 million people so quickly if the case fatality rate were only 2%. 2% is bad but SARS saw around 15% in many countries and things weren't locked down this tightly.

presumably fatality is only one of many factors here. 15% of 100 infections is a different beast than 2% of 1M. And if it takes up to 14 days to see symptoms...