TAMPA, Fla — The are now more people infected with the new coronavirus in China than during the SARS outbreak in 2003.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization is meeting to decided if this latest outbreak amounts to a global public health emergency.
While it can all sound alarming, Dr. John Sinnott, an expert in infectious diseases at Tampa General Hospital is putting it into perspective.
While the virus is spreading in China and five cases have been confirmed in the U.S., Sinnott says people should be more concerned about a different virus that's far more of an immediate threat: the flu.
"I worry a great deal about influenza, a serious, systemic illness," Sinnott said. "Last [flu season] in America 80,000 people died of influenza."
Sinnott, who is also the chairman of the College of Internal Medicine at the University of South Florida, has worked extensively on previous outbreaks including Ebola, SARS, and MERS. He says the coronavirus is "not nearly as fatal."
Consider the numbers when you put the coronavirus up against the flu.
So far, it's estimated there have been more than 6,000 cases of coronavirus worldwide. Nearly 200 people have died, mostly in China.
So far during this year's flu season, there have been roughly 15 million cases and more than 8,000 deaths—and that's just in the U.S.
Coronavirus might be highly contagious but unless you've been to China, as it stands now, you're not going to get it, said Dr. Sinnott. So far the virus is not human-to-human in the U.S.
"It's new and what people don't know frightens them," he said. "As a scientist and doctor I'm worried it may mutate but only time will tell us but so far it hasn't.
"The dangerous killer flu is out there now."
Luckily, Dr. Sinnott says, protecting yourself from either the coronavirus or flu is one in the same.
Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough and stay home from work if you're feeling sick.
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