Fever. Cough. Shortness of breath.
Those are the symptoms of influenza — and also the mysterious new coronavirus.
Which do you have? It depends how you answer these two questions: Have you recently traveled to Hubei Province, China? Do you have any close friends or family members who have recently traveled to Hubei Province, China?
These two risk factors — traveling or having close contact with a traveler — were shared by all five U.S. cases of the new coronavirus, said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at a Wednesday press briefing. No new cases have been reported.
So far, everybody else has the flu. Influenza has sickened between 15 and 21 million and hospitalized 70,000 Americans so far this season. Since the new coronavirus was identified in mid-December, 149 Californians have died of the flu.
Confusion is natural, said Messonnier.
“The symptoms of this disease are fever, cough and respiratory disease,” she said. “Thatap similar to the early symptoms of influenza and other viral respiratory diseases.”
And itap reasonable to assume that we’ll see additional cases of the new virus, she said.
“But we don’t think people who are not in one of these two groups need to be concerned,” she said. “We judge the risk to be low.”
If you don’t have a fever of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or higher that lasts for three to five days, you likely just have the common cold.
Keep Kleenex, and carry on.
Want to learn more? Go to
