A top United States specialist in infectious diseases has warned the country's politicians that coronavirus COVID-19 is 10 more times lethal than the flu.
The coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday morning, as the number of cases recorded surpass 122,000 worldwide, with around 4400 deaths. At least 1100 of those cases were confirmed within the United States.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the infectious diseases at the United States National Institute of Health, appeared at a congressional hearing on Wednesday (local time) and issued a warning about the illness' mortality rate in comparison to the flu's
"The seasonal flu that we deal with every year has a mortality of 0.1 percent. The stated mortality overall of this, when you look at all the data including China, is about 3 percent. It first started off as two and now three.
"I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, that probably brings the mortality rate down to somewhere around 1 percent, which means it is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu."
The mortality rate of the flu may differ between countries, however.
Earlier this week, Professor Robert Booy, a medical professor at the University of Sydney, warned 3000 Australians could die from coronavirus, the same as the number who would die from influenza. In New Zealand, it's estimated that about 500 people die every year from the flu.
The WHO has said the mortality rate of coronavirus COVID-19 is 3.4 percent. However, experts argue it could be much higher or lower depending on a number of variables.
"In the case of COVID-19, the time between onset of disease and death is quite long - 2 to 3 weeks or more - so the number of cases that you should divide by is not the number of cases that we have seen to this point, but the number of cases that there were a few weeks ago," said Prof John Edmunds of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
"In a rapidly expanding epidemic, that number will be much less, so the true case-fatality-ratio will be higher."
However, he also said as many cases aren't reported, the rate of death could be lower.
"We do not report all the cases. In fact, we only usually report a small proportion of them," said Prof Edmunds.
"If there are many more cases in reality then the case-fatality-ratio will be lower."
One of the reasons why the virus may be underreported is that it has similar symptoms to the flu, and therefore people may not realise they have it. For most people, the symptoms are mild, however, in other people, particularly the elderly or those with pre-existing health conditions, it can be serious and potentially fatal.
Dr Fauci says the United States, which has recorded 1135 cases, can expect more cases.
"I can say we will see more cases and things will get worse than they are right now. How much worse will get will depend on our ability to do two things: to contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country. Bottom line, it's going to get worse."
There's no vaccine for the illness, but it can be recovered from. According to the John Hopkins University tracker of the illness, 66,000 people worldwide have recovered.
Coronavirus is primarily spread through droplets in the air after someone sneezes or coughs. However, it can also be contracted by touching surfaces where the illness is present, according to WHO. The length of time the virus stays alive on surfaces is unknown at this stage, but some viruses can remain active for days.
