...everything else is dangerous speculation. The author starts out with the 100/1600 deaths/infections ratio and points out that if there's really only 1600 infections, the virus doesn't spread easily; and if there's many more infections, the death rate is tiny.

How about this: how do we know that only infection rate is suspect? This is Mexico. The death rate could easily be 10000 without too much trouble. It's a very large, very corrupt country that derives a huge portion of its income from tourism.

So the following scenario is at least PLAUSIBLE: (disclaimer: so's virtually any other scenario. The point is that we SHOULD be very scared, for now, until we learn more)

* The virus spreads very easily: witness the casual tourists with presumably limited and sanitation-moderated contact with the locals who visited places OTHER than Mexico City who were infected

* The virus kills young Mexican adults, for one of the Mexico-specific reasons the author outlined, at a high rate

* It kills other young adults at a somewhat lower rate

* Thousands in Mexico have died, either unnoticed in that country's general chaos or deliberately underreported by profoundly corrupt authorities

...maybe. Or maybe not. But we need to be extremely cautious with this thing...

One thing to add, no one who has contracted the disease in the U.S. has been even seriously ill, as far as I'm aware (NY had about 30 kids infected, all o.k). Therefore, not a big emergency here.

BIG disclaimer: we're still waiting, and the situation could change drastically. Of course it's already too late to stop the infection coming here, but the CDC should remain doing all it can until the extent and virulence of the disease is known.

Not worrying that much here yet though.

...once we admit that we don't know anything...

...we have slipped into nihilism and cannot reason our way out. Cogito ergo sum, at the very least.