Any coronavirus experts out there?

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I'm hoping some coronavirus experts can help me out. I have difficulty concentrating so it's hard to gather facts. Why is everything shutting down because of coronavirus? How is it different from an ordinary chest cold? Ordinary flu viruses kill some elderly too so why is everything shutting down because of coronavirus?

Don't worry I'm self isolating and washing my hands often. I just want to know more about coronavirus.

I am hardly an expert (and at this moment maybe no-one is, alto a lot of research is being done to find out more). But I do try to stay informed. The main difference with a flu or normal cold is that Corona for all intents and purposes appears to be more deadly then the seasonal flu (about 10-20x times more lethal). And even though it mostly kill old people, young people can also become seriously ill and require intensive care. And in that later part is the problem. The amount of infected people who need to have intensive care treatment to have a chance of surviving.

If no measures are being taken to at least slow down the spread it could easily overwhelm the health care system. As has happened in those parts of Italy that have been hit the hardest. Or in parts of China. Which would also mean there are less resources available for those with other conditions.

Is there a coronavirus help line in your country or area? In my country one was founded to answer people's questions about the virus; try googling if there's one where you're from as well.

Everybody on the internet is a coronavirus expert now <- sarcasm.

Your questions are relatively basic, so I can share the answers I know:

The goal is to "flatten the curve":

so the serious cases to treat at the peak don't overload the capacity of hospitals.

In a sense, it is just a new kind of ordinary chest cold - but as it is new, people are not as immune to it as they are to viruses flying around all the time.

Capacity of hospitals and intensive care units.

Asia seems to have had success with lockdowns, while Italy ignored the warnings and now has the highest death toll, even though it isn't over yet. Human nature is to copy what works and avoid what doesn't.

Lots of idiots ignored the warnings and went on Spring Break in Florida. While most will survive, they are exactly what a disease would want to propagate itself throughout a population. They are likely to healthy enough to hide any symptoms and pass the disease to people who aren't strong enough to fight it off without assistance of a ventilator or anti-virus shot. With a normal flu, those would likely be available. What if they are not?

There is a class bias associate with finding cures to diseases. There is little research and development toward diseases that only affect poor people. It costs money to do so and the people in power don't see that as important. It is likely that the first people affected in the USA are rich or upper middle class, as they are the ones who can afford to fly all over the globe on business and vacations. Poor people don't travel from Europe to the USA by boat anymore. Poor people dying on the Titanic's last voyage wasn't fiction.

COVID-19 is more serious than the regular flu because we haven’t acquired natural immunity to it yet.

It is also making people who don’t usually get seriously ill during a regular flu seriously ill.

It is killing old people who don’t deserve to die.

There are excellent reasons why governments are risking a worldwide depression to get rid of this illness.

I subscribe to the New York Times online and I see on their front webpage that it says they have opened their corona virus information to the anyone, even those without a subscription.
https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus

Also, the CDC has an excellent repository of up to date information.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

Johns Hopkins has a short piece on youtube that tries to answer some relevant questions. (early March 2020)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyxZ_aaMqA8