“How dangerous is the new virus in China?”

Fortunately, the COVID-19, the new Coronavirus, is not so severe for children nor even for adults your age. It's more severe for older folks, and I think the older, the worse it may be. But a serious problem for all of us.

G. Dickinson

Thank you for your question. To the best of my knowledge the coronavirus that originated from China this year seems to be about 10 times more "deadly" overall by comparison the seasonal influenza virus across all patients. This is simply based on the number of deaths and number of overall cases that are know from China and may not be completely accurate, as they likely had not identified all infected patients. Unlike the flu for which we have vaccination and anti-flu meidcines we don't have an antiviral medication proven effective (yet) and no vaccine against the coronavirus yet- which leaves only supportive care treatment options.
We know that likelihood to get serious disease up to death from this coronavirus infection increases with age and if another significant medical condition is present; this includes conditions of the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, liver, lungs, diabetes, cancer or state in which the immune system is compromised to name important ones. We also know that the vast majority of coronavirus infections are associated with mild disease (probably 80+%)-I would say that the risk for a healthy 41 year old- to get serious or life threatening disease is low.

So far, early reports shows it is a respiratory infection with a 20% severe/critical state and 10% mortality.

It is a little too soon to say for sure how dangerous the virus is going to be, but it has already caused a number of deaths. Right now, the health agencies are trying to keep it contained by quarantine, etc. There has only been one case in the United States so far, and the gentleman is apparently doing pretty well. Unless you are in the Wuhan region of China, at this particular point in time, I would not worry about the virus. Let the health agencies do their job, and in all likelihood it will not become a big problem in the U.S. Back in 2007 or so, SARS was a similar, but perhaps slightly worse virus outbreak that started in China. It made its way to Canada and actually infected a good number of people there. Despite that, it never really made much of an impact in the United States.

Randall Fisher, M.D.