It is a grave situation.

18 million people under locked out in China Emergency meeting of the World Health Organization.

Another case of Corona virus is found in the UK So with the covert 19 Corona virus death toll in China now at more than 2200 with over 1000 cases and eight deaths outside of China, how worried should you be on after weeks of scientists working around the clock to understand the virus?

What should you actually do to prevent it?

We're going to explore the latest key information around what we do know about the virus on what you can do about the latest global health scare.

So, actually, are the symptoms.

People with Covert 19 as the novel Corona virus strain has now been officially named have flu like symptoms, and that means a cough, high temperature or shortness of breath.

But because Corona virus only affects the lower respiratory system, having a sore throat is not usually a sign of the virus or there's some patients have reported it to.

For most patients, the symptoms have been mild.

Most of those who died in China appear to have had pre existing health conditions on that being elderly.

Digging a little deeper.

A Lancet paper from January that looked at 99 patients with the covert 19 Corona virus found that it's more likely to affect older men with existing illnesses.

Off the 99 in the study, the majority were men.

The mean age was 55.5 on.

More than half already had chronic diseases.

The fact that it may disproportionately affect older men is a similar pattern to SARS that some scientists believe that there could be a male vulnerability to Corona viruses regarding the death rate.

The most recent estimates from Imperial College London, suggest that 1% of people with Corona virus don I from their infection.

China has also done its own study into more than 44,000 cases, the most detailed research into covert 19.

Yet it found that more than 80% of cases were mild on put the overall death rate at 2.3%.

So how does what we know so far about the novel Corona virus Compared to the flute?

Well, seasonal flu, which comes in the winter every year, has the death rate of around 0.120 point 4%.

So this novel Corona virus appears to have a death rate higher than that.

But pandemic flu, which is a global outbreak and which we store happened three times in the 20th century, has a death rate depending on the strain off 123%.

So this covert 19 Karan device appears to be similar to that again.

That's a lower death rate than SARS, which has about 10% death rate on a bola, which is around 50 to 60%.

19 is not as deadly as as ER coronaviruses.

More than 80% off patients have mild disease and will recover.

And how is the bars confessed?

There's a test called PCR that stands for polymer race.

Chain reaction identifies the Corona virus based on its genetic fingerprint.

You should only be concerned if you are displaying their symptoms and you've traveled from Wu Han in Hoob, a province, in the last two weeks on that also applies if you've bean to other parts of China, as well as Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Macao.

That's according to the latest guidelines from the UK government.

So what's the best way of avoiding infection?

We're going to start by talking about these the face mask.

They sort of become the global symbol off the Corona virus.

But should you actually be wearing them?

And do they actually do anything?

Well, the general advice is that if you're coughing and sneezing and you haven't been to any of the countries on that list, just do what you would do normally.

Use a tissue and put it in a clothes bin and keep yourself away from others.

So the evidence for face masks in the general public is very limited.

In fact, there's no evidence to show that they have any effect whatsoever.

A number of studies have been done previously on influenza and shown that in the general population they have no impact on transmission.

Actually, the W H.

O says, the only time you should wear one if you're a healthy individual, is when you're taking care of someone who has the novel Corona virus.

I'm wearing a mask isn't as easy as you might have thought you've got.

Wash your hands before we put it on.

You gotta make sure it covers your mouth, your nose and chin, and you've got to make sure you don't touch it while you're wearing it on dhe.

Once you've them worn it, you've gotta dispose of it properly.

The key thing is that the math doesn't work just by itself.

One of the best things you can do is regularly wash your hands and use a tissue when you sneeze.

Masks are of limited utility unless you're using the right type of mask in the right way on washing your hands frequently whenever you touch it.

Now some was unwell.

Toe wear a mask might be beneficial because it more limit when they coffin sneeze how far the spray goes on.

It will also stop them covering their mouth with their hands and then shaking hands with someone.

The W.

H.

O has declared a public emergency, but not a global pandemic, and countries have been proactive in tracing those who have bean infected.

We cannot say it's a pandemic.

The contact are traceable.

We know the chain of transmission, and the authorities are reporting regularly the cases.

But things are under control now.

Egypt recently became the first country in Africa to report a case of covert 19.

Is that a Coolsville concern?

Well, countries in Africa have been preparing for an outbreak on even before Egypt's confirmed case.

People have been quarantined in Ethiopia, Kenya, the Ivory Coast and Botswana.

But there's still some concern about how some countries will fare if the corona virus spreads and just how far this virus could reach.

Do you think that the infection rate of 60% off the population, which has been suggested by some of your colleagues, is realistic for Britain, potentially given when we know a lot about how the sort of viruses spread?

We have lots of data from past epidemics.

Given how transmissible this Valorous appears to be, and the fact that at least all adults could be infected, we have much less data and Children when 60% is a reasonable figure for for the epidemic size within the 1st 12 months or so.

However, that claim was disputed by the W.

H.

O, who said that that would only be the case if nothing was being done to contain the spread.

Many things are done to stop the virus.

The number of cases remain increase but stable, stable, stabilized.

And so we don't see a next Clothes Eve epidemic, as we could have feared at the beginning of this outbreak.

Of course, one of the biggest cases of Corona virus outside of mainland China is not in a country but on one ship.

Off the more than 3700 people on the Diamond Princess, 634 were infected with the novel Corona virus after they were all quarantine for more than two weeks.

Now, cruise ships are used to preparing for outbreaks like this.

Norovirus has been a problem before, and it's difficult to say why more cases are coming up despite the quarantine.

I think that probably needs to be an investigation once everyone's off the ship, Thio identify what happened.

Did quarantine measures fail?

So where was it not being implemented properly?

Was there some kind of environmental source on the ship that we need to know about that helped in the transmission, or is this really just that Actually, a lot of people were exposed a lot earlier than we thought before quarantine started on.

They're just showing symptoms over a gradual period of time.

So really, the key to stopping the spread is being able to identify and isolate those who may have it.

A lot of it comes down to how good countries are at tracing people who are coming into contact with the virus on making sure they are tested and then dealing with them afterwards if they have the virus.

So that's our latest update on the novel Corona virus.

Let us know if there's anything more you'd like to know in the comments below and subscribe to make sure you stay informed.