It's human nature to scoff at trouble when it's not happening around you. But I am very concerned about this virus. There is no treatment, no cure, and no resistance. If you live, you live. If you don't, you don't. Remember how Facebook went from a marginal website to dominate the world? I think this virus will spread just as virulently.

Yes it's news, yes it contagious, and yes the news is blowing it out of proportion. There are 57 confirmed cases in the US, hundreds of thousands in China and 2700 deaths world wide. The death toll from this years flu (non covid-19) will be 4.2%(approx.).Covid -19 death rate is 3.12% in China and 0.01% outside of the Wuhan epicenter.
In short, yes be aware of it. But don't stop living your daily life..

I have mixed feelings about the mass hysteria. It seems somewhat media fed and sensationalized but it is something to be concerned about.

An elderly gentleman got a bit in my 11 year olds face the other day about being sick at Meijer. She had puffy eyes because she had been crying about something. I thought it might have something to do with the Corona thing but didn't think till later alot of the rural folks around here think my kids are Asian.. Pissed me off and kinda creeped my out.

We really need to work on that "staying home" part as a society. Ive noticed some of the same people at work who are big on banning travel to china are the same ones that talk the most sh*t about people who call in and aren't "sick enough". Its amazing how ingrained the "work through it" culture is. You would think people would be past that in healthcare. (I work in longterm care of elderly). It seems almost as ingrained as it was in resuraunts. Neither of those situations make me feel good about what could happen if something slighly more contagious and deadly came along..

Yes that is often the case, and your health advice is really good. Though it was a feature of the 1918 flu that many people had an immunity to it, because it was related to other, milder, flu viruses, and if you had contracted one of those in the previous decades, then you had a degree of immunity. Which is why it mainly killed people in the the under thirties age group, because they had less often been exposed to related viruses. Coronavirus however is said to be unrelated to any other, we may have encountered before, so that it will probably strike at random, with the old and weak being most at risk.

Good advice, but hey penicillin won't do anything for a virus - but do I know you are just pointing out how primitive medicine was back then, period.

And to Julie below - we also have disinformation at our fingertips that is too effective at spreading lies and FUD. It's available several times at a day from certain Twitter accounts and spreads down from there, plus through many other pores in society's thingskin.

Yep, we are lucky in this day and age. We have information at our fingertips and on the airwaves, plus all kinds of ways to keep ourselves sanitary. We can attend events virtually online, if we need to be isolated, and so much more.

I am lucky that when I was "quarantined" recently, I was able to remain inside my own home. I have the option of ordering food and medicine delivered to my door -- and when feeling better but still feeling the need to isolate myself from others, I was able to go through the Drive-Thru windows at the drug store and various fast food, since I wasn't up to preparing my own food. (McDonald's smoothies were about the only thing I could keep down for a couple of weeks.)

We are lucky in so many ways, but I do worry that the US Government might not be as "on top of things" as we might like. I wish I were more confident that the virus will be contained if/when it starts spreading further here in the U.S.