Keeping up with the Novel Coronavirus

As someone that travels a lot, I have been keeping tabs on the Novel Coronavirus (officially known as COVID-19). There is a great deal of fear about the flu and cold-like illness but that is a good thing. It is keeping people vigilant about ensuring it doesn't spread. My own company has gone so far as to ban all international travel. It gets me out of a meeting during one of my vacations and so I not too inconvenienced . . . yet.

Unfortunately there are those that prey upon the unknown and fears of others. The Internet is a wealth of misinformation and lies. Fortunately it is also the best place to go for finding out what is really going on. My favorite place to go is the World Health Organization situation reports. They put one out every day and you can go all the way back to when they first identified the problem. The reports show how many people in the world have the virus (45,171 as of today) as well as how many people have died from it (1,115 as of today). Interestingly the number of daily new cases seems to be going down. I would not say that the world is safe yet, but it is a good trend.

I have heard reports that surgical masks are difficult to purchase. A very recent search on Amazon showed that they still have some for sale so I don't know how much truth there is to those reports. Furthermore if you go back to the WHO situation reports, there are only 13 cases the United States. The only death outside of China is in the Philippines. Personally I think my chance of getting the virus is very small right now, even with all of the air travel I do. However I don't want to sound complacent as my risk could increase seemingly overnight. We still need to remain vigilant and do all we can to keep the illness from spreading. For me that means washing my hands frequently and avoiding contact with people that are starting to show signs of the virus (fever, cough, and shortness of breath according to the Center for Disease Control).