Americans should relax—at least for now—regarding the new Coronavirus (official name: 2019-nCoV). Why?
At this moment, there are 17,496 cases confirmed worldwide, with 17,308 of those cases in China. There are 11 cases in the US. There have been 362 deaths from Coronavirus, all of them in China. There is a global map here of confirmed cases—a map created and updated by Johns Hopkins CSSE. If you examine that map you may be scared or reassured, depending on where you live. Will this Coronavirus develop into something we should all worry about? Only time will tell. Should we worry about it now? No. Unless you live in China, then maybe.
The CDC estimates that in the 2018-2019 flu season (the last flu season, not the current one), 35,520,883 people in the US got sick, 647,000 people were hospitalized, and 61,200 died. That flu season was considered moderately severe. Compare that to the previous year’s flu season, 2017-2018, in which 48.8 million people in the US got sick, with 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths.
Now let’s look again at Coronavirus in the US: 11 people sick and 0 deaths. Those numbers are likely to rise, but at the moment, almost anything else is more likely to kill you. Such as lightning (about 51 deaths annually in the US). Or falling out of bed (about 450 deaths annually). Or opening a bottle of Champagne (about two dozen deaths annually). People have died while taking a selfie for YouTube. So before you freak out, remember that your chances of not dying are excellent.
And as for influenza, you did get your annual flu shot, didn’t you?
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