New story in Health from Time: Want to Protect Yourself from Coronavirus? Do the Same Things You Do Every Winter

Many Americans likely grew a little nervous after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Thursday that a novel coronavirus has spread for the first time within the U.S. But agency officials and other doctors have a simple message for Americans: keep doing what you’re doing to stay healthy.

“The best things that you can do are the things that we generally recommend at this time of year to prevent the spread of infectious diseases,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a Jan. 30 call with reporters. “Wash your hands, cover your cough, take care of yourself and keep alert to the information that we’re providing, because we’ll provide new information as it becomes available.”

In Asia, the novel coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV is spreading rapidly, and has reached far enough to warrant being designated a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. As of noon Friday, it has infected nearly 10,000 people, most of them in mainland China, and killed 213. But public health officials have emphasized that risk to the American public remains low, and spreading within the U.S. has so far been limited to one wife-to-husband transmission.

While 2019-nCoV has never been seen before, it’s part of a family of viruses that are well-known both to doctors and the public; the common cold, for example, can be caused by certain coronaviruses. And while influenza is not a coronavirus, it isn’t so different from 2019-nCoV, either. Both result in symptoms including cough and fever, and—from what scientists can tell so far—both seem to be spread mainly via respiratory droplets and close person-to-person contact.

For those reasons, experts are recommending prevention measures in keeping with those deployed during a normal flu season. The CDC has not recommended that Americans wear protective masks or take dramatic measures against coronavirus. Messonnier did emphasize during Thursday’s call that people who have been in Wuhan, China—where the outbreak originated—or spent time around people who have traveled from the area should monitor themselves for symptoms of coronavirus, such as cough, fever and respiratory distress. These people should call their health care provider and stay home from work or school if any symptoms develop.

Aside from that, though, there’s not much Americans can or should do at this point, beyond the usual measures.

“Good hand-washing helps. Staying healthy and eating healthy will also help,” says Dr. Sharon Nachman, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at New York’s Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. “The things we take for granted actually do work. It doesn’t matter what the virus is. The routine things work.”

And while the flu shot won’t protect against coronavirus—and there’s no vaccine for the new virus yet—experts are still recommending that people get vaccinated against influenza if they haven’t yet, since the likelihood of getting the flu in the U.S. is far higher than contracting coronavirus. (For context, the CDC estimates that around 19 million Americans have gotten the flu so far this season, compared to only a handful who have developed coronavirus domestically.) As long as flu virus is still circulating, it’s not too late to get a flu shot.

New story in Health from Time: COVID-19 Has Been ‘Apocalyptic’ for Public Transit. Will Congress Offer More Help?

While trying to get to work over the past few months, Brittany Williams, a Seattle home care worker, has often been passed by two or three buses before one stops to let her board. Buses in her area that once carried anywhere from about 50 to 100 passengers have been limited to between 12 and 18 to prevent overcrowding in response to coronavirus, and Williams’ commute, typically a half-hour ride, now takes more than double that time. Other Seattle transit riders have described budgeting as much as an extra hour per trip to account for the reduced capacity, eating into their time at work, school or with family. Even with the ridership limits in place, Williams, 34, doesn’t feel safe on public transit. Some passengers don’t wear face coverings, and bus drivers sometimes ignore capacity limits, she says. On one ride with her seven-year-old son, she decided to get off at a stop far from her home after a driver allowed a crowd of people to board. “It’s very trying. I’ll put...

New story in Health from Time: An At-Home Coronavirus Test May Be On the Way in the U.S.

As cases of COVID-19 continue to climb in the U.S. , there’s a new urgency to make sure there are as many tests as possible to diagnose people who have symptoms that might indicate an infection. Knowing if people are positive is important for guiding their next steps: self-isolation, avoiding contact with others, and, if their symptoms get worse, seeking medical care. To date, access to tests has been spotty at best across the country, and while more kits are now available than even a week ago , most are gene-based assays that take several days for commercial labs to process and produce results. That may change in about two months if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives Emergency Use Authorization to the first blood-based COVID-19 test in the U.S. Scanwell Health, an at-home test company based in California, licensed the rights to a test developed by Chinese company Innovita, which was used extensively at the height of country’s epidemic earlier this year. “The ...

New story in Health from Time: A Montana Care Home Refused Free COVID-19 Tests. Now, Nearly Every Resident Has Coronavirus

(BILLINGS, Mont.) — It was meant to be a last line of defense to protect the most vulnerable as the coronavirus spread across the United States : Montana officials offered free testing in May for staff and residents at assisted living and long-term care facilities. But not all of them followed through, according to state data, including a facility in Billings, Montana’s largest city, that cares for people with dementia and other memory problems. The virus has infected almost every resident and killed eight, accounting for almost a quarter of Montana’s 34 confirmed deaths. Thirty-six employees also have tested positive at the facility where 59 people lived before the deaths began. Read more: ‘It’s Getting Worse.’ Nursing Home Workers Confront Risks in Facilities Devastated by Coronavirus While Montana’s rates of confirmed infections and deaths are much lower than other parts of the country, the outbreak at Canyon Creek Memory Care illustrates that even the most simple an...

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