In Italy the current death rate is running at 6.6%.
But Italy has a higher proportion of older people.
“In Italy the current death rate is running at 6.6%.”
No it isn’t. To know the death rate have to know how many cases there are and they don’t know that. Recorded cases may be a small minority of actual cases.
Italy has a 39% Closed Case Death Rate so far. See here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/
The correct statistic to follow is Deaths / Closed Cases, which I’ll call the Closed Case Death Rate. Closed Cases are composed of both “Deaths” and “Recovered / Discharged.” Neither the numerator or denominator contains people who are currently sick and may either die or recover in the future.
Like Italy, China had a high early Closed Case Death Rate, which declined dramatically to about 6%. Nobody trusts China’s numerator or denominator, but let’s say Italy follows the decline as quarantines work.
In the mean time, let’s not use the bad math of Deaths / Total Cases. In a situation where the Cases are expanding rapidly as they are in Italy, that’s a useless statistic. Many of the Active Cases will result in Death. The correct stat is Deaths / Closed Cases, which is extremely high now (39%), and will be worked down as effective measures (hopefully) kick in (6% more or less???).