Novel coronavirus: Your questions, answered

The current outbreak of infections with a novel type of coronavirus has sparked global anxiety and concern that the virus might spread too far and too fast and cause dramatic harm before health officials find a way to stop it. But what are the realities of the new coronavirus outbreak? We investigate.

What are the realities of the new coronavirus outbreak?

In December last year, reports started to emerge that a coronavirus that specialists had never before seen in humans had begun to spread among the population of Wuhan, a large city in the Chinese province of Hubei.

Since then, the virus has spread to other countries, both in and outside Asia, leading authorities to describe this as an outbreak. At the end of last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the situation to be a public health emergency.

To date, the novel coronavirus — currently dubbed 2019-nCoV for short — has been responsible for 31,211 infections in China and 270 across 24 other world countries. In China, the virus has so far caused 637 deaths. It also led to one fatality in the Philippines.

But what do we really know about this virus? And how is it likely to affect the global population?

Medical News Today have contacted the WHO, used the information that public health organizations have offered, and looked at the newest studies that have featured in peer-reviewed journals to answer these and other questions from our readers.

1. What is the new virus?

2019-nCoV is a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that target and affect mammals’ respiratory systems. According to their specific characteristics, there are four main “ranks” (genera) of coronaviruses, which are called alpha, beta, delta, and gamma.

Most of these only affect animals, but a few can also pass to humans. Those that are transmissible to humans belong to only two of these genera: alpha and beta.

Only two coronaviruses have previously caused global outbreaks. The first of these was the SARS coronavirus — responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) — which first started spreading back in 2002, also in China. The SARS virus epidemic primarily affected the populations of mainland China and Hong Kong, and it died off in 2003.

The other one was the MERS coronavirus — or Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus — which emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012. This virus has affected at least 2,494 people since then.

2. Where did the virus originate?

When humans do become infected with a coronavirus, this typically happens via contact with an infected animal.

Some of the most common carriers are bats, although they do not typically transmit coronaviruses directly to humans. Instead, the transmission might occur via an “intermediary” animal, which will usually — though not always — be a domestic one.

The SARS coronavirus spread to humans via civet cats, while the MERS virus spread via dromedaries. However, it can be difficult to determine the animal from which a coronavirus infection first starts spreading.

In the case of the new coronavirus, initial reports from China tied the outbreak to a seafood market in central Wuhan. As a result, local authorities closed down the market on January 1.

However, later assessments have since suggested that this market was unlikely to be the single source of the coronavirus outbreak, as some of the people infected with the virus had not been frequenting the market.

Specialists have not yet been able to determine the true source of the virus or even confirm whether there was a single original reservoir.

Source: Medical News Today