After a week, thankfully the total number of cases in the U.S. has not increased dramatically.
Remember, the main way our medical community responds to an individual with Corona virus infection, like other infectious disease outbreaks, is to isolate the individual from the populace so as to limit viral transmission to other people, and offer “supportive” medical treatment. This emphasizes that specific antiviral treatment, ie antivirals, are not available to us. It also explains the need to get specific reliable testing out to the community to diagnose the illness, and specific anti-Corona virus vaccination out to the populace to reduce the threat to the individual and society at large.
So far, the virus does appear to manifest with diverse clinical illness, as most viruses do, ranging from no symptoms, to mild, moderate, severe symptoms, and unfortunately to death in 2 to 3 % of those infected. And, so far, like the flu, the elderly and chronically medically ill persons are the most seriously afflicted, and more likely to succumb. So prioritizing evaluation and treatment of them is most judicious, and logical which also takes into account our current limited resources to diagnose the disease.
Transmission of the virus does occur via the respiratory tract( nose and mouth) only, so airborne virus as well as contacting the virus on inanimate objects and the touching one’s mouth or nose can transmit the virus. This generally explains how those “without known contact with the virus” become infected with it.
This virus although newly able to infect humans is not unique in any way from other viral “pathogens” that our experts have dealt with in the past. Understanding it’s combination of behavior and abilities, as well as how to manage it is left to those experts who have devoted much of their lives to understand these occurrences, and why we need to make sure we appropriately fund their them and their agencies.
If there ever was an example of known facts and truth this is it. Fake news from the experts does not exist. But, as they do their best to do their jobs objectively and without bias and calmly, it is up to our political representatives, our news agencies, and ourselves to do the same. There is no excuse for acting in any other fashion by anyone of us for any gain other than our mutual protection.