The true fatality rate of Coronavirus isn’t yet known, but it seems 10 times higher than the flu, which kills hundreds of thousands around the world each year.
Most people have had mild to moderate illness and recovered, but the virus is more serious for those who are older or have other health problems.
The virus can live in the air for several hours, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. Cleaning surfaces with solutions containing diluted bleach should kill it.
The risk of virus transmission from food servers is the same risk as transmission from other infected people.
Each infected person spreads to two or three others on average, researchers estimate. It spreads more easily than flu but less than measles, tuberculosis or some other respiratory diseases. It is not known if it spreads less easily among children, but fewer of them have been diagnosed with the disease.
The average time from exposure to developing symptoms is five to six days, but can be up to two weeks. Tests have found high amounts of virus in the throats and noses of people a couple days before they show symptoms.
Signs of virus also have been found in stool weeks after patients recover, but that doesn’t mean it’s capable of causing illness, scientists warn.
Scientists are hoping that by warmer weather, a decline can be noticed in the Virus’s spread. Nothing is certain however.
