To put the panic into perspective, the CDC estimates that annually, there are between 9 ~ 45 million cases of the common flu in the US, of which 140 ~ 810 thousand require hospitalizations which in turn, resulted in 12 ~ 61 thousand deaths.

www.cdc.gov/[...]

The much compared SARS epidemic of 2003 resulted in 8,098 cases and 774 deaths.

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5249a2.htm

While we do need to stay vigilant, I do not believe the constant obsessing over the disease and the numbers does anyone any good, there are far more deadly causes of disease that have killed, can kill, have the potential to kill millions of people world wide that we should be more concerned about but don't seem to bat an eye at.

Hysteria is far more dangerous at this point than any potential death the corona-virus might bring. Bottom line, stay away from close contact with people as much as possible, wear gloves when going out (much more effective at preventing diseases than wearing masks), wash your hands often, especially after being out, and don't touch your face, especially your eyes, and you'll be able to minimize your chance of catching any virus, not just the corona-virus.

Live life as you ordinarily would, the odds are, you are in a greater likelihood of dying of something other than this virus.

PS: Here is a interesting video about how pneumonia like diseases kill.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=okg7uq_HrhQ

***topic tidied up***

This thread has quickly drifted off into hearsay, and speculation.

Hearsay, speculation, and 'news' without sources is not welcome on the forum.

There is an article that is live with VERIFIED news with regards to hospitals, transportation etc. here www.gokunming.com/[...]

Thank you all for staying level headed. As the OP said, Keep calm and carry on.

There was a reason a separate thread was started. So now any reasoned discussion is frowned upon? Good lord.

mp.weixin.qq.com/s/teP1zR7gQxRb8A3jS3i3RQ

Any speculation or hearsay related to the novel corona virus outbreak is especially sensitive, and will be deleted. On any other topic the normal posting guidelines apply, i.e. you are free to speculate and include hearsay.

This thread had also drifted into the realms of criticizing the government and GoKunming cannot go there.

We hope you are willing to understand that these are not normal times, and accept the decisions of the moderation team.

Thank you.

You have my respects.

Was everybody aware that you can get real time information on WeChat now?

A tad more reliable than Youtube.

@Trumpster: I agree that overreaction is dangerous. However, so is underreaction, as it can breed complacency and thus lead to more infections as people get lazy about taking basic precautions.

I think that "Live life as you ordinarily would..." is bad advice and the general tone of your post is overly dismissive of the potential seriousness of the situation, in light of the following.

First, while the absolute numbers of annual deaths from the flu are high as you stated, it is also important to consider mortality rates among those infected. And that figure is reported to be 40 times greater for the coronavirus than the average for flu pandemics: 4% vs. 0.1%.
(Links for mortality rates, respectively:
www.sciencenews.org/[...]
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22148/ )

Also, the coronavirus apparently has an incubation period of up to two weeks, and may be transmissible during that period before symptoms become apparent. The implications of these factors for the disease’s potential to spread are self-evident.
(Links for incubation period and transmissibility, respectively:
us.cnn.com/[...]
www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html )

Having said that, there may be some grounds for cautious optimism. Per the figures I posted before ( www.gokunming.com/[...] ), it appears that the mortality rates and infectiousness for the coronavirus are currently no worse than SARS, and maybe even somewhat less severe. And SARS was contained with a relatively small number of cases and deaths, as noted above.

Overall, of course we should keep calm as you say. But some of the factors I discussed, when combined with the case statistics, give grounds for real concern. So for the moment, I am not living as I ordinarily do. For example, I am going out less than usual, and mostly staying around my neighborhood rather than going to places that draw a wider cross-section of people. I don’t think that amounts to panic or hysteria.

Where on wechat can info be found?

As I write, GoKunming is putting together a list of reliable internet sources of information, that will be made available as soon as it is finished. This will include Wechat information where available.