The heartbroken son of a Sunderland gran battling the coronavirus declared: "I just hope she's not going to be the next one to die".
The Pennywell woman is currently in a coma after becoming the first person in the city diagnosed with the virus.
To date Covid-19 has killed five Brits. Worldwide, it is responsible for over 4,000 deaths.
Many victims are elderly with severe underlying health conditions. However, the Sunderland woman's son said: "Apart from her knees, she's otherwise fit and healthy, so this has shocked us all.
"We thought she just had a cold and a bit of a chest infection, but on Thursday she was gasping for air and struggling to breathe so she went to hospital and by Friday it was much worse.
"We still just didn't even think it was the coronavirus though, as she doesn't even really leave the house.
"In fact the only time she's left the house in the last two weeks was to go to the doctors, so we don't know know how or where she got it."
He said two members of her family, who have asked not to be named, have been asked to self-isolate. He, as well as others, say they have been given the all-clear by Public Health England.
The woman, who is in her 60s, is currently in South Tyneside District Hospital and had her diagnosis made public on Monday evening.
It was the sixth confirmed case in Tyne and Wear to date and Gillian Gibson, director of Public Health at Sunderland City Council, said the authority was doing all it could to stop the virus spreading.
"While we still have a lot to learn about the virus, the advice from the UK Government’s chief scientific adviser is that for the vast majority of people who catch COVID-19, it will be a mild illness," she said.
"The best way anyone can protect themselves and others from the virus is to wash their hands thoroughly and often with soap and water, or use a hand sanitiser, and to cough or sneeze into a tissue, bin it and wash their hands."
The Sunderland woman's son says his mum was placed in an induced coma after her health rapidly deteriorated.
He added: "She is no better or worse, it is the machines that are pretty much keeping her alive at the moment.
"I think the staff are trying everything they can, but this is all so new, and so rare.
"It is scary to think 'where has this come from?' and I just hope that she's not going to be the next one to die."
While the number of British cases is expected to increase dramatically in the forthcoming weeks as the virus peaks, the outbreak is still well away from the levels seen in other countries.
Italy is in lockdown as it battles to contain it while on Tuesday, the number of coronavirus cases in Spain doubled.
But as Britain prepares for darker days, the woman's son is now pleading for the public to follow the Government's advice to try and curb the outbreaks - so that as few family's as possible have to go through the "nightmare" his family have over the last week.
"People need to start cleaning their hands and washing themselves as the virus is out there now, and I think within the next week it will get really bad as how do you stop something that is invisible?"
