Americans should prepare for coronavirus spread in U.S., CDC says

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

45. People here are citing ludicrously high death rates.

That strikes me as panicking. They also ignore the fact that almost all, maybe everyone who dies is elderly or has some other underlying health issue. Having compromised lungs is apparently a problem. Smoking rates in China are very high.

If the majority of people who get this particular virus have no or mild symptoms, then it simply isn't that dangerous. But in this very thread people are talking about avoiding crowds, stocking up on alcohol wipes, although plain soap and water is probably better.

I'm going to hazard a guess that in China, where the majority of deaths have occurred, people are not as scrupulous about hand-washing as they should be.

I like to point out that when the Spanish flu did its thing a hundred years ago, many, many people did not have running water in their homes, and regular hand-washing would not have been a thing.

Meanwhile, how many people have gotten influenza so far this year? How many have died? If every single influenza death were reported, this country would come to a standstill every winter.