The fatality rate is apparently increasing based on the availability of reliable data. As of March 18, there are 90,746 cases in which an outcome has been confirmed. Of those cases, the number in which that outcome was death stands at 7,984. This means that the worst case scenario is now a fatality rate of 9%. Any estimated fatality rate above 9% should be categorically rejected. Also, it is important to note that the fatality rate varies from country to country based on a number of variables and that it is not a fixed number and there are many things that can be done in society to minimize the death toll. So remember, the fatality rate will change often.
It should also be noted that there are two solid reasons to believe that this maximum fatality rate is about double the actual fatality rate. One is that research has shown that about half of the actual number of cases are confirmed. The other is simply derived from looking at South Korean stats apart from the rest of the world. South Korea has taken a different approach to dealing with this pandemic than other countries have. Instead of ordering people to comply with huge lockdowns and assuming that people simply do not understand, they have taken several key steps that should be considered exemplary. It is based on accepting that people are smart enough to understand and being transparent.
1) Seoul has procured an abundance of reliable and fast test kits. This is essential to tracking accurate statistics in a timely manner.
2) Every single individual suspected of having been in contact with an infected person is tested, even if they go abroad, and anyone who wants to be tested is also. Positive tests lead to more suspected cases and in this way, the state isn't so far behind the spread.
3) They have made use of the fact that almost every citizen has a smartphone to create an AI system that tracks where infected individuals have been and can therefore see more cases in which others may have come into contact with the virus. If a person goes into a building where a confirmed case has been they get an alert on their phone telling them to take precautions and said buildings have teams sent out to put up signs and sanitize.
4) TRANSPARENCY. They immediately report on their findings to the appropriate disease control authorities and this has the added benefit of providing the world with the most reliable statistics and epidemiological data.
South Korea stats:
total cases: 8,413
deaths: 84
recovered: 1,540
active cases 6,749
critical cases 59
For simple math that can give you an idea but certainly won't pass peer review, take the number of critical cases and the number of active cases and you've got a simple equation to figure out a rough hospitalization rate. So in Korea, about 8% of active cases are critical. For such an equation to figure out a rough fatality rate, you'd take the sum of the recovered and the dead to come up with the number of cases with an outcome and then divide this number by the number of the dead. Doing this would give a worst case scenario for the fatality rate in South Korea. I would like to caution, profusely, that this is far from scientific and the fatality rate is certainly below 5% in South Korea because these numbers will be mitigated by the fact that there are still more cases than have been confirmed as asymptomatic cases will still invariably occur. Another mitigating factor is that doctors may be reluctant to declare a patient recovered due to caution.