SALISBURY, Md.- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating 110 cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. One of those cases is in Maryland.
The Maryland Health Department says the patient is being monitored and is doing well. They're still awaiting test results to see if the patient does in fact have the coronavirus. It's a type of virus that's transmitted through animals and it started in Wuhan, China. It's not clear where in Maryland the patient is from.
However, health officials in Wicomico County are warning people not to panic, as the new virus comes amid peak flu season.
"The 2019 coronavirus has some symptoms that are similar," Danny Drew, public health emergency planner for the Wicomico County Health Department, says. "Right now, the CDC is identifying three major symptoms. That's shortness of breath, cough and a fever."
Those symptoms, health experts say, can be hard to identify as the coronavirus.
"Most people who've had coronavirus don't realize it," Dr. Kerry Forrestal, attending physician at Peninsula Regional Medical Center, says.
Forrestal says there is no real treatment for the coronavirus, since a patient comes in with cold or flu-like symptoms and the test for the virus is sent to the CDC for confirmation. By that time, the patient would have been treated for the symptoms they were experiencing.
"We may not have a test for the coronavirus locally but can eliminate all of the common stuff. So we have testing for flu, different testing for different respiratory diseases," Drew says. "So when we limit it down, then we know the probability if it's something else or not."
The county health department says it's actively raising awareness on social media and its emergency preparedness team is monitoring the virus.
"Internally, we look at our plans, we dust them off and make sure everything is good to go. And, we look at the worst case scenarios," Drew says. "So we plan and it makes it easy to deal with something that simple."
County health experts agree: it's important to put it into perspective.
"Be as cautious as you would about the flu," Forrestal says. "Right now, there are 110 cases under investigation in the United States, maybe a little bit more now. The last time I checked was yesterday. 32 have been negative, 72 under investigation, five or six positive. So that's the coronavirus versus the flu: 15 million cases, 1 million hospitalizations 8,000 plus dead. So, the flu is probably more of a concern than the coronavirus."
According to Forrestal, the coronavirus is spreading in places like Wuhan because of its location and how many people live there.
"One of the things that helps pass these viruses is very congested conditions like you see in Wuhan. If you look at the size of the city of Wuhan, it's about the size of Delaware. Delaware has 970,000 some odd people and Wuhan has 11 million. That's 11 times the size," Dr. Forrestal says.
Wicomico County health experts say people can prevent getting sick in the same ways as they would prevent the flu and common cold: washing your hands and sneezing into your arms, to name just a few. Updates from the CDC and tips to traveling and prevention can be found here.