Scientists are concerned about a new virus that has infected tens of thousands of people and killed more than 1,000. The virus, which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, is a coronavirus and belongs to the same family as the pathogen that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. It causes a respiratory illness called COVID-19, which can spread from person to person.
Here’s the latest news on the outbreak.
14 February 14:00 GMT — Chinese cases spike after diagnosis change
A sudden spike in new coronavirus cases in China this week shocked researchers. But the huge bump in numbers isn’t a sign that the epidemic is worsening, say researchers, it is instead the result of authorities changing how cases are confirmed.
On 12 February, Hubei province reported nearly 15,000 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, representing a 33% jump in total infections worldwide in a single day. Total infections in China now number around 64,000, with more than 1,300 deaths.
But most of the Hubei cases — about 13,000 — are the result of a new policy in the province that means physicians can diagnose suspected cases of COVID-19 on the basis of chest images, rather than having to wait for genetic tests to confirm the presence of the virus, which can take days.
The policy is in response to pleas from clinicians who are overwhelmed by patients with respiratory diseases, and don’t have time to wait for lab results, says Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who helped design and implementing the new policy. “The clinicians in Hubei made a very strong request to modify the criteria because of their heavy work load,” he says. Now they can care for people more quickly and ensure they are properly isolated to protect others, says Wu. “We need to save lives.”
The policy makes sense from a medical point of view, says Michael Mina, an infectious-disease immunologist and epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. “Triaging based on symptomatic evaluation and physical exam is the bed rock of hospital-based and clinical triage,” he says.
The new classification was listed in updated disease reporting guidelines issued last week, only applies to Hubei, where the virus originated in the city of Wuhan. Wu says that other provinces aren’t as overwhelmed with cases so will still need to confirm suspected cases with genetic tests or lab cultures of the virus taken from patients.
The Chinese state media outlet Xinhua urged calm after the large number of new cases were reported. “Although the figures rose, it does not mean that the epidemic in Wuhan has deepened,” it said.
On 14 February, Chinese authorities revealed for the first time the number of infections in medical staff. As of 1,716 health workers had contracted virus, 6 of whom died.
13 February 12:15 GMT — Chinese virologists raise concerns about virus name
Some researchers in China are unhappy with the designated name for the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. They worry that the use of ‘SARS-CoV’ will confuse the public and impede efforts to control the pathogen’s spread.
On 11 February, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses announced the name, which was chosen on the basis of an analysis of the new coronavirus’s evolutionary history and the pathogen that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), called SARS-CoV. Classification rules and established naming practice also informed the decision.
Although the two viruses belong to the same species, SARS-CoV-2 spreads much faster than SARS-CoV but is less deadly, says Shibo Jiang, a virologist at Fudan University in Shanghai. SARS-CoV retreated in the summer, but nobody knows what the new virus will do in the coming months, he says. People might think it will behave similarly and stop taking precautions come summer.
Scientists also worry about the potential social and economic impact for China of revisiting the bad memories associated with SARS. “That name can cause panic to people, and may cause gross economic loss to the affected countries when the virus is circulating,” says Guo Deyin, a virologist at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.
On 9 February, virologists in China suggested in a paper in Virologica Sinica that the latest virus be called transmissible acute respiratory syndrome, or TARS-CoV.
Sun Caijun, an infectious-disease researcher also at Sun Yat-sen University, says that he would have preferred the virus be named clustered acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (CARS-CoV) or rapid spread respiratory syndrome coronavirus (RARS-CoV), given the virus’s quick spread.
Not everyone is bothered by the designated name. Lijun Rong, a virologist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, doesn’t think it will affect the public’s response to the outbreak. People just want the virus to go away as quickly as possible, he says. “A name is just a name.”
13 February 12:00 GMT — Listen: coronavirus gets formal name
Nature’s European bureau chief Nisha Gaind and Nature Podcast’s Nick Howe discuss the naming of the new coronavirus and the suggestion that the pathogen might have originated in pangolins.
13 February 03:00 GMT — Researchers worry cases are going undetected in some regions
Cases of the new coronavirus, which is now known as SARS-CoV-2, might be going undetected in some nations considered at high risk of an outbreak because they are reporting fewer cases than expected or none at all, say scientists. Infections have been detected in 24 countries outside China so far.
Researchers are using flight data to create models of the virus’s possible spread around the world. One model identified 30 countries at risk of importing SARS-CoV-2, on the basis of the large number of flights from Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicentre, and from other cities in China with lots of travellers from Wuhan. But several of those countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia, have reported fewer cases than the model predicts. Indonesia, another country at risk, has yet to report a single case.
The possibility of unreported cases is particularly concerning in countries with weaker health-care systems, such as those in southeast Asia and Africa, which could quickly be overwhelmed by a local outbreak. No cases have been reported in Africa so far, but some countries there, such as Nigeria, are at particular risk because of strong business ties to China.
12 February 17:45 GMT — WHO calls for speedy vaccine, drug and diagnostic development
World Health Organization officials outlined their top research priorities for controlling the outbreak of the coronavirus-associated disease now known as COVID-19. At the close of a two-day international forum in Geneva, Switzerland, assessing the outbreak, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke about the importance of developing candidate therapeutics and easy-to-apply diagnostics for identifying active, asymptomatic and resolved infections.
Research should also look to understand the best approach for infection prevention, including assessing whether lockdowns in major Chinese cities have had a positive or negative effect on slowing the spread of virus. Virologist Marie-Paule Kieny, who co-chaired the forum, said that there were four vaccine candidates in development. In around three months, she suggested, one or two of those might be in human trials. Still, it will be more than a year until they might be available for wider use. Officials called for research on how to control and counter misinformation that has spread since the start of the outbreak. Finally, Tedros encouraged research into preventing the transmission of zoonotic diseases — which originate in animals — to stem future outbreaks of this type.
Although researchers are already investigating some of these questions, and many others, WHO officials hope that its research blueprint will help to direct donor funding to the most productive avenues.
11 February 15:25 GMT — Coronavirus disease officially named COVID-19
The World Health Organization has officially named the disease caused by the coronavirus COVID-19. This will replace various monikers and hashtags given to the emerging illness over the past few weeks. Most recently, on 8 February, China’s National Health Commission decided to temporarily call the disease novel coronavirus pneumonia, or NCP. But because viruses continue to spread from animals to people, this coronavirus won’t be novel for long.
“COVID-19 stands for coronavirus disease in 2019,” said Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, at a press briefing. She explained that there are many coronaviruses, and this style of naming will provide a format for referring to new coronavirus diseases in future years. “The virus itself is named by an international group of virologists who will look into the taxonomy,” she said. “But it is important to have a name for this disease that everybody uses.”
Two other diseases caused by coronaviruses were given names describing the clinical manifestations: SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome).
Shortly after the WHO announced the disease’s official name, the virus causing it was named SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. In a paper posted to the bioRxiv preprint server, the committee’s study group on coronaviruses explains that this term highlights the new virus’ similarity to the SARS virus identified in 2003.
11 February 11:45 GMT — Coronavirus deaths in China pass 1,000
More than 1,000 people in China have been killed by the coronavirus, the nation’s health authorities report. Worldwide, more than 43,000 people have been infected.
Millions of people in China returned to work on Monday after the Lunar New Year holiday was extended by more than a week in an effort to halt the spread of the virus — although many businesses remain closed.
Researchers will be watching closely to see whether the number of cases increases as a result of people going back to work….
