The mortality rate will not be known for a long time
The figures always look bad initially because it's easy to count the numbers that die, but impossible to count the numbers of people who have the disease and take a few days off before going back to work. Yes - it's bad if you die but it appears that the majority of people have few symptoms beyond feeling like they have the cold and the flu, cough a bit, feel sick for a bit and then get better. Until testing becomes widespread these people do not count as infected so the bad numbers always look worse initially.