Worried You Have Coronavirus? Here's What To Do

First, know the symptoms

If you have symptoms — including fever, cough, and shortness of breath — that suggest you may have caught the novel coronavirus, it’s best to seek medical assistance. 

What to do if you think you have corona

Call your health provider

Before you do anything, call your health provider.

This is an important step for two reasons.

First, in mild cases, your doctor might be able to advise you on treating your symptoms at home without visiting their office, which would reduce the number of people you might expose to your illness.

Second, if your case is more serious, calling ahead will give your health provider time to prepare for your arrival and give you any special instructions (such as using a special entrance or wearing a mask) for your trip.

Stay home until you make a full recovery

As with any other illness, it’s important to minimize your contact with others. It’s best to stay home as long as you’re ill, so as to avoid spreading your illness to others at work, on public transportation, or at the gym.

Based on current information, it’s likely that the illness will take one to two weeks to run its course; during that time, it’s best to stay home.

Wear a mask

Although evidence suggests that wearing a mask isn’t particularly helpful if you’re healthy, wearing a mask while you’re ill is an important step to minimize your risk of transmitting your illness to others. This is because illnesses such as the cold, flu, and coronavirus travel from person-to-person via coughing and sneezing, which release contagious droplets into the air.

Wearing a mask while you’re ill prevents you from spreading droplets through the air and protects others from your coughs and sneezes.

Don’t panic

It’s important to keep the situation in perspective. Although the novel coronavirus sounds scary because it’s a new disease, the reality is that most people sickened by it don’t seem to get that ill.

Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Institute for Global Health at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an infectious diseases professor, says:

"Eighty percent of people have such minor symptoms, they don't actually require any medical care at all. The 20 percent who do feel quite ill need to be evaluated, and some of them will require hospitalization and some of them will require intensive care."

—Lorelei Yang