in just over one month a new unknown
virus has gone from one city in China to
infecting over 75,000 people in more
than 25 nations worldwide and now has
killed the first person in Europe it is
a grave situation 18 million people
under lockdown in China emergency
meeting of the World Health Organization
another case of corona virus is found in
the UK so with the covert 19 coronavirus
death toll in China now at more than
2,200 and with over a thousand cases and
eight deaths outside of China how
worried should you be and after weeks of
scientists working around the clock to
understand the virus what should you
actually do to prevent it we're going to
explore the latest key information
around what we do know about the virus
and what you can do about the latest
global health scare so what actually are
the symptoms people with kovat 19 as the
novel coronavirus strain has now been
officially named have flu-like symptoms
and that means a cough high temperature
or shortness of breath but because
coronavirus only affects the lower
respiratory system having a sore throat
is not usually a sign of the virus well
there's some patients have reported it
to for most patients the symptoms have
been mild most of those who've died in
China appear to have had pre-existing
health conditions and they've been
elderly digging a little deeper a Lancet
paper from January that looked at 99
patients with the kovat 19 coronavirus
found that it's more likely to affect
older men with existing illnesses of the
99 in the study the majority were men
the mean age was 55 point five and more
than half already had chronic diseases
the fact that it may just
proportionately affect older men is a
similar pattern to SARS that some
scientists believe that there could be a
male vulnerability to coronaviruses
regarding the death rate the most recent
estimates from Imperial College London
suggest that one percent of people with
coronavirus die from their infection
China has also done its own study into
more than 44,000 cases the most detailed
research into covert 19 yet it found
that more than 80 percent of cases were
mild and put the overall death rate at
2.3 percent so how does what we know so
far about the novel coronavirus compared
to the flu well seasonal flu which comes
in the winter every year had
death rate of around 0.12 0.4% so this
novel coronavirus appears to have a
death rate higher than that but pandemic
flu which is a global outbreak and which
we saw happen three times in the 20th
century has a death rate depending on
the strain of one to three percent so
this co bid nineteen coronavirus appears
to be similar to that again that's a
lower death rate than SARS which has
about 10% death rate and a bola which is
around 50 to 60% corvid nineteen is not
as deadly as other coronaviruses more
than 80% of patients have mild disease
and will recover and how is the virus
confirmed there's a test called PCR that
stands for polymerase chain reaction it
identifies the corona virus based on its
genetic fingerprint you should only be
concerned if you are displaying their
symptoms and you've traveled from Wuhan
in Hubei Province in the last two weeks
and that also applies if you've been to
other parts of China as well as Thailand
Japan South Korea Hong Kong Taiwan
Singapore Malaysia and Macau that's
according to the latest guidelines from
the UK government so what's the best way
of avoiding infection we're gonna have
to start by talking about these the face
masks they sort of become the global
symbol of the corona virus but should
you actually be wearing them and do they
actually do anything well the general
advice is that if you're coughing and
sneezing and you haven't been to any of
the countries on that list just do what
you would do normally use a tissue and
put it in a clothes bin and keep
yourself away from others so the
evidence for face masks in the general
public is very limited in fact there's
no evidence to show that they have any
effect whatsoever a number of studies
have been done previously on influenza
and shown that in the general population
they have no impact on transmission
actually the whu-oh says the only time
you should wear one if you're a healthy
individual is when you're taking care of
someone who has the novel coronavirus
and wearing a mask isn't as easy as you
might have thought you've got wash your
hands before we put it on you've got to
make sure it covers your mouth your nose
and your chin and you've got to make
sure you don't touch it while you're
wearing it and once you've then worn it
you've got to dispose of it properly
the key thing is that the mask doesn't
work just by itself one of the best
things you can do is regularly wash your
hands and use a tissue when you sneeze
masks are of limited utility unless
you're using the right type of mask in
the right way and washing your hands
frequently whenever you touch it now if
someone's unwell to wear a mask might be
beneficial because it will limit when
they cough and sneeze how far the spray
goes and it will also stop them covering
their mouth with their hands and then
shaking hands with someone the whu-oh
has declared a public emergency but not
a global pandemic and countries have
been proactive in tracing those who have
been infected
we cannot say it's a pandemic the
contact are traceable we know the chain
of transmission and the authorities are
reporting irregularly the cases but as
things are under control now Egypt
recently became the first country in
Africa to report a case of kovat 19 is
that a cause for concern well countries
in Africa have been preparing for an
outbreak and even before Egypt's
confirmed case people have been
quarantined in Ethiopia Kenya the Ivory
Coast and Botswana but there's still
some concern about how some countries
will fare if the corona virus spreads
and just how far this virus could reach
do you think that the infection rate of
60% of the population which has been
suggested by some of your colleagues is
realistic for Britain potentially given
when we know a lot about how these sort
of viruses spread we have lots of data
from past epidemics given how
transmissible this virus appears to be
and the fact that at least all adults
can be infected we have much less data
in children then 60% is a reasonable
figure of four for the epidemic size
within the first 12 months or so however
that claim was disputed by the w-h-o who
said that that would only be the case if
nothing was being done to contain the
spread many things are done to stop the
virus the number of cases remain
increased but stable stable stabilised
and so we don't see an explosive
epidemic as we could have feared at the
beginning of this outbreak
of course one of the biggest cases of
coronavirus outside of mainland China is
not in a country but on one ship of the
more than 3,700 people on the Diamond
Princess 634 were infected with the
novel coronavirus after they were all
quarantined for more than two weeks now
cruise ships are used to preparing for
outbreaks like this norovirus has been a
problem before and it's difficult to say
why more cases are coming up despite the
quarantine I think there probably needs
to be an investigation once everyone's
off the ship to identify what happened
deed quarantine measures fail so work
was it not being implemented properly
was there some kind of environmental
source on the ship that we need to know
about that helped in the transmission or
is this really just that actually a lot
of people were exposed a lot earlier
than we thought before quarantine
started and they're just showing
symptoms over a gradual period of time
so really the key to stopping the spread
is being able to identify and isolate
those who may have it a lot of it comes
down to how good countries are at
tracing people who are coming into
contact with the virus and making sure
they are tested and then dealing with
them afterwards if they have the virus
so that's our latest update on the novel
coronavirus let us know if there's
anything more you'd like to know in the
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