The Novel Coronavirus Originating in Wuhan, China

Abstract

China reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, caused by a novel coronavirus, currently designated 2019-nCoV. Mounting cases and deaths pose major public health and governance challenges. China's imposition of an unprecedented cordon sanitaire (a guarded area preventing anyone from leaving) in Hubei Province has also sparked controversy concerning its implementation and effectiveness.Cases have now spread to at least 4 continents. As of January 28, there are more than 4500 confirmed cases (98% in China) and more than 100 deaths. 1 In this Viewpoint, we describe the current status of 2019-nCoV, assess the response, and offer proposals for strategies to bring the outbreak under control. Current StatusChina rapidly isolated the novel coronavirus on January 7 and shared viral genome data with the international community 3 days later. Since that time, China has reported increasing numbers of cases and deaths, partly attributable to wider diagnostic testing as awareness of the outbreak grows. Health officials have identified evidence of transmission along a chain of 4 "generations" (a person who originally contracted the virus from a nonhuman source infected someone else, who infected another individual, who then infected another individual), suggesting sustained human-to-human transmission. Current estimates are that 2019-nCoV has an incubation period of 2 to 14 days, with potential asymptomatic transmission. 1,2 Multiple countries have confirmed travel-associated cases

World Health Organization declares global emergency: A review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19)

“…US airlines have also suspended flights until early spring [49]. Local exit screening conducted by healthcare professionals at airports is currently recommended by WHO [46], and multiple countries (Australia, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, India, Italy, and Singapore) have initiated temperature and symptom screening protocols [50]. Several countries (UK, US, and Australia) are also quarantining citizens having recently been evacuated from Wuhan [51][52][53].…”

The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak: What we know

“…Chan and his colleagues [21] reported a case of five patients in a family cluster, which confirmed Person-to-person transmission of CoVID-19. Health officials have identified evidence of transmission along a chain of 4 "generations" (a person who originally contracted the virus from a nonhuman source infected someone else, who infected another individual, who then infected another individual), suggesting sustained human-to-human transmission [22,23] . Up to present, the main infection source was the patients who with pneumonia infected by the SARS-CoV-2.…”

The Role of Augmented Intelligence (AI) in Detecting and Preventing the Spread of Novel Coronavirus

“…BlueDot has shown previous success as well in prediction of the international spread of Zika virus from Brazil [10]. During any outbreak, the speed of information gathering and information dissemination is critical to containment of the threat [11]. The work published by the authors from BlueDot demonstrates the high variety and veracity of data that can be aggregated to make very accurate epidemiologic predictions utilizing AI.…”