Question: how serious is covid-19?

Katrina Wesencraft answered on 18 Mar 2020:

All pandemics are serious. But it’s really difficult to say exactly what’s going to happen next – there’s so much about this virus that we don’t know. Based on what’s happened in other countries, it looks like the majority of people have mild symptoms. So far, it’s very rare for young people to end up seriously ill from this coronavirus. So that’s good. But people who are older, have weakened immune systems or other serious health conditions can end up seriously ill. We all need to try social distancing to stop the virus from being passed to those people. If too many people end up seriously ill at once, there might not be enough hospital beds for everyone. Scientists are working hard to develop a vaccine against coronavirus – this should be possible but it will take time!