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Novel Coronavirus: Don’t Panic Amid The Frightening Headlines
We need to put the numbers into perspective
The headlines are very scary. Every day, more and more people are getting infected with this mysterious, novel Cornonavirus originating in China. As I write this, over 37,000 people have been infected, and the death toll has reached 811, including the doctor who first raised alarms about the infections. As of now, Coronavirus has killed more people than SARS did more than a decade ago.
Indeed, this infection is scary. It has spread very quickly, it has killed hundreds of people, and no known antibiotics can treat the infection because it’s a virus.
What is Coronavirus?
Coronavirus is a “betacoronavirus” which has its origins in animals. It is like the virus that caused both SARS and MERS. For most people, the infection causes a cold, or flu-like illness. For some, however, the infection can be deadly — causing serious pneumonia and other conditions that can lead to death. That’s what makes it so scary: it seems that knowing which person who gets infected will become deathly ill is totally unpredictable.
