W.H.O. is determining whether to designate the outbreak of 2019-nCoV as an international public health emergency. Sadly, W.H.O. has put this determination off for at least 10 days, the same sort of cowardly “watch and see” that allowed other diseases to fester and spread. W.H.O. never seems to learn. We know that there is airborne human to human transmission, and that there is a true risk of a pandemic, so let’s look at what you can do to protect yourself, as there’s no doubt that the first American patient won’t be the last.

On the upside, this coronavirus is less virulent than SARS or MERS, meaning that there is a lower probability of death. However, it is still mutating, so we don’t know how it will end up.

As I wrote back when SARS, MERS, Zika, Swine Flu, Bird Flu and other viruses started spreading: fingers, nails, fingers, fingers, fingers. Which means wash your hands. And not just your palms – but your fingers, your nails and then your fingers over and over. You should wash your hands for a minimum of 20 seconds. You should do this every chance you get, it will decrease your probability of all sorts of illnesses. In fact, per an internal paper from the CDC, if every American washed his/her hands properly a minimum of 10 times a day, the incidence of non-venereal communicable disease would decrease by 90% over 30 days nationwide. Believe it or not, washing your hands is even more important than wearing one of those paper masks. Continue Reading...