"The bad news a wider spread means more overall deaths."
All things equal yes, but not necessarily in reality.
If the fatality rate rather is around 0.7 % then most likely the total number of deaths in the world will be lower than if it really was 5 %.
SARS-CoV-2 will probably continue to spread for weeks and maybe some months, but it should be good news if the relatively low South Korea fatality rate is a norm.