According to an NPR PBS NewsHour Marist poll, 66-percent of Americans believe the coronavirus is a real threat. But according to some local health officials, you should be more concerned about catching the flu. Every day health officials are teaming up with businesses and government agencies to prepare for the risk or spread of disease. We'll discuss how prepared the valley is for an outbreak.

It has been over two months since the coronavirus outbreak was first reported and a lot about the virus continues to remain a mystery.

The Southern Nevada Health District told a Henderson couple who returned home Sunday from an ill-fated Asian cruise that they are at “very low risk” to become ill with COVID-19 or to spread the coronavirus to others, despite that another passenger aboard the MS Westerdam has been diagnosed with the illness, according to the couple.

Coronavirus infections in China continue to swell by thousands a day, prompting epidemiologists to estimate when the outbreak will peak. Some suggest the climax, when the number of new infections in a single day reaches its highest point, will happen any time now. Others say that it is months away and that the virus will infect millions — or in one estimate hundreds of millions — of people first.

The World Health Organization (WHO) released the latest statistics on the coronavirus on Tuesday. The update stated that that there are 42,708 diagnosed cases of coronavirus in China, and the death toll has risen to 1,017. While these figures are alarming, one health expert warns that the novel coronavirus has the frightening potential to infect 60 percent of the population.

The Southern Nevada Health District is monitoring an undisclosed number of Clark County residents who recently returned from China for the new coronavirus, the public health agency said Monday.

A simulation using artificial intelligence shows that the coronavirus could infect 2.5 billion people in 45 days and kill at least 52.9 million of them.

Fear of the spreading coronavirus has led groups around the world to abandon niceties and recommend against handshakes, which are now discouraged at next month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where high-profile companies are already dropping out due to coronavirus concerns. The gesture is also reportedly unwelcome at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm in San Francisco. Even youth soccer leagues in Canada nixed post-game handshakes.