Worried About Catching The New Coronavirus? In The U.S., Flu Is A Bigger Threat
January 29, 20204:37 PM ET
ALLISON AUBREY
Making sure to frequently give your hands a thorough scrub — with soap and for about as long as it takes to sing the "Happy Birthday" song a couple of times — can significantly cut your chances of catching the flu or other respiratory virus.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
If you live in the U.S, your risk of contracting the new strain of coronavirus identified in China is exceedingly low.
So far, the only people infected in the U.S. have traveled to the region in China where the virus first turned up in people. And, though that could change, one thing is for certain: Another severe respiratory virus that threatens lives — the influenza or "flu" virus — is very active in the U.S. right now.
Already this flu season (which generally begins in the U.S. in October and peaks during winter months), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 15 million people in the U.S. have gotten sick with flu. More than 150,000 Americans have been
hospitalized, and more than 8,000 people have died from their infection. And, this isn't even a particularly bad flu year.
"Last year we had 34,000 deaths from flu," says epidemiologist
Brandon Brown of the University of California, Riverside. On average, the flu is responsible for somewhere between
12,000 and 61,000 deaths each year. "And this is just in the United States," Brown says.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...coronavirus-in-the-u-s-flu-is-a-bigger-threat