Question: Can coronavirus kill you? If so, how long does it take?

Ioana Grigoras answered on 9 Mar 2020:

Hi! I don’t work at all with viruses, so I don’t really know a lot about the coronavirus, because it’s not something I do any research on.
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From what I read, people who catch it will have symptoms similar to that of a cold or flu, like fever, cough and shortness of breath. Currently, it seems to have a mortality rate of about 2% (that means that approximately 2 out of 100 people who catch it die), but it is important to know that this is calculated between people who died and people who went to their doctor and got diagnosed with the disease. There will be a lot of people who have developed symptoms and isolated themselves without going to the doctor. Those cases won’t be reported because they were not confirmed and thus, the actual mortality rate is most likely a lot smaller than 2%.
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It also seems to affect elderly people who already have other health problems and then, the flu-like symptoms make these preexisting problems worse. I wouldn’t know how long it takes to be fatal, but I guess it depends very much on how sick those people were before they got the virus.
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I think it is very important not to panic and keep in mind what the guidelines to stay safe are! Wash you hands with water and soap regularly, sneeze in your elbow or a tissue that you can throw away (not in your hands), don’t touch your face and stay inside if you are sick, so you don’t give it to other people.