Why The World Cares More About The New Coronavirus Than The Flu
Every year, viruses like influenza kill hundreds of thousands worldwide — yet countries don't respond with lockdowns or airport screenings. Here's why they're doing so over the coronavirus outbreak.
The number of people who are infected with the new coronavirus that is spreading from China is dwarfed by those affected by a far more common respiratory illness: seasonal flu.
Every year there are as many as 5 million severe flu cases worldwide and hundreds of thousands of deaths. By contrast, so far there have been about 17,000 cases of coronavirus, most of them mild.
Yet governments are responding to the new
