It seems to be a bit worse than annual flu, but not Armageddon. The Chinese didn’t shut down large swathes of their country because of a mild virus. Nor the Italians.
If 50% contract it, 10% of those will require hospitalisation that is 5% of the population and 1% mortality rate would mean circa 300k deaths in a relatively short period of time.
It will put a lot of strain on NHS and other public services (cremation and burial services for example) at a time when some of their staff will no doubt be off sick.
Are the media overplaying it? Probably, but they overplay anything that will get them views/viewing figures/shift papers