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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) Dr. Jeff Harp of Highland Family Medicine discussed the Coronavirus, its spread, and what you need to know about it Thursday during News 8 at Sunrise.

Actually, theres not one coronavirus, theres a whole bunch of coronaviruses, explained Dr. Harp. They basically range from the common cold to very serious diseases like this SARS thing that just happened, MERS, and what were having right now. So, its a whole family of one type of virus.

The current strain, COVID-19, originated in China. When it comes to symptoms, Dr. Harp said theyre not dissimilar to the common cold. So look for cough, fever, and trouble breathing. But the trouble is with some of these viruses, like the one that were seeing here, it can go on to very serious diseases like pneumonia, kidney failure, and even death.

Dr. Harp said this strain of Coronavirus, COVID-19, has been identified in 32 countries. Were learning more about exactly how deadly it is at this point. So at one point, it seemed like a lot of people who were getting it were getting very seriously ill. Now, it looks like perhaps about 2% of the people who get the disease will eventually succumb to it, die from it, which is a lot less serious. For example, the Middle Eastern virus that was around a couple years ago, it was about a third of people that got it would die from it.

Fear of Coronavirus and its impact has been reflected across the global economy and in the actions of individual people. Some have taken to wearing masks as a preventative measure. Its serious if ones exposed to it, noted Dr. Harp. Its not as contagious as many viruses, but its also preventable through the same kind of way that you would prevent the common cold. So we recommend that people take precautions. Obviously, traveling to China right now is not really the thing to do. Dont go outside when youre sick. Dont hang around sick people. If youre sneezing or someones sneezing, you know, cover the sneeze. Throw out the stuff that you use to clean it up. And then just use common sense in terms of, you know, touching objects, cleaning surfaces, that sort of thing.

If you want to learn more about Coronavirus and the current strain, COVID-19, Dr. Harp said go online to cdc.gov/coronavirus.

Read the rest here:
Highland Family Medicine doctor helps us understand the threat of Coronavirus - RochesterFirst

This entry was posted on February 28, 2020 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Preventative Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |