A Seattle woman recovering from the coronavirus has taken to the airwaves to try to calm infected individuals with her story.

Elizabeth Schneider, 37, advises fellow infected individuals to not panic, stay home and rest.

“I think the big takeaway I want to tell everyone is please don’t panic,” she told CNN. “If you are healthy, if you are younger, if you take good care of yourself when you’re sick, you will recover, I believe. And I’m living proof of that.”

Ms Schneider’s was one of 457 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Washington state, where the nation’s first outbreak was reported.

She described her symptoms as “feeling tired, body aches, getting a headache, feeling a bit feverish.”

Thinking a nap might help, she dozed off, eventually waking up with a 101 degree fever.

“...by the time I went to bed, it had soared to 103 degrees,” she said.

Ms Schneider didn’t have a cough, shortness of breath, or other respiratory symptoms associated with the virus. But, when she and a group of friends who’d attended a house party together all became sick around the same time, she began taking the possibility of having coronavirus more seriously.

She and her friends underwent flu testing, but those results came back negative, leaving the group sick and without answers.

“At this point, we were all getting a little frustrated that they weren’t allowed to be tested for coronavirus, or the doctor wasn’t even suggesting,” she said.

One of Ms Schneider’s friends told her about a flu study happening in Seattle where participants could sign up online and send a nasal swab to a lab for testing. She participated and was ultimately diagnosed as a result of that testing. Ms Schneider recovered with the help of rest and over-the-counter medication.