What We Know About the Wuhan Coronavirus

An outbreak of a new coronavirus in China has killed at least 17 people and sickened more than 400 people and has spread to many other countries. The first case outside Asia was announced on Tuesday when federal health officials confirmed that a man from Washington state who had recently traveled to China had been hospitalized.
Here is a brief summary of what we know so far. What is a coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are called spikes that protrude from their membranes, which resemble the crown of the sun. They can infect both animals and people and cause respiratory tract diseases, ranging from the common cold to serious conditions such as SARS, which has made thousands of people sick and killed nearly 800 of them, during an epidemic in 2003.

How do I know if I am infected with the new coronavirus?

Symptoms of the infection include high fever, shortness of breath and lung injury. Mild cases can resemble flu or colds, making detection difficult. The incubation period, the time from exposure to onset of symptoms, is believed to be approximately two weeks.

Little is known about who is at greatest risk. Some of the patients who died also suffered from other diseases.

How was this virus identified?

On January 8, the New York Times reported that Chinese researchers identified a new coronavirus as a pathogen behind a mysterious disease that caused 59 people to fall ill in Wuhan, 11 million cities in central China. The cases were related to workers in a market selling live fish, animals, and birds. The market was therefore closed and disinfected.

The number of human infections has grown significantly, to over 400 in China, and cases have now been confirmed in Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and South Korea. The 17 people who died from the disease were in Hubei, the Chinese province of which Wuhan is the capital, and many of the other infected people had lived in Wuhan or traveled there.

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