You know it’s been a bad week for the stock market when: The market has rallied from down 1,000 on the day to down 600 and you feel relieved that it’s only down 600 points.

But 600 points isn’t bad considering the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 4,000 points on the week. That’s a record point total but more important, the percentage decline from the peak, about 14 percent in a little over a week, is close to a record decline.

The new Coronavirus is scary and many people have already died and many more certainly will. Beyond that, commerce and tourism have been disrupted around the world and that, too, will get worse before it gets better.

Even worse, no one can even hazard a good guess as to how bad things will get. A worst case scenario is truly frightening and there is good reason why that prospect has spooked investors.

But should the worst case not take place, the markets may have already discounted the economic damage from the virus. In that case, and if the virus doesn’t trigger a recession, the economy may begin recovering some time this year.

For long-term investors (and there is no other kind. Short-termers are speculators, not investors), this panic likely will just be a blip in the performance of the market over their investing careers. Decisions made in panic rarely serve investors well. It’s no guarantee, but the odds favor staying the course, not pulling the plug.