The 2019–20 novel coronavirus outbreak, is a viral outbreak that was initially identified during mid-December 2019 in the city of Wuhan in central China, as an emerging cluster of people with pneumonia with no clear cause, which was linked primarily to stallholders who worked at the Huanan Seafood Market, which also sold live animals. Chinese scientists subsequently isolated a new strain of the coronavirus, designated as 2019-nCoV, which has been found to be at least 70% similar in genome sequence to SARS-CoV. It is not clear however, whether the 2019-nCoV is of the same severity or lethality as SARS. On 20 January 2020, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged decisive and effective efforts to prevent and control the pneumonia epidemic caused by a novel coronavirus. As of 22 January 2020, nine deaths have occurred, all in China, and there is evidence of human-to-human transmission. Extensive testing has revealed more than 400 confirmed cases, some of whom are healthcare workers. Confirmed cases have also been reported in Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong and the United States.
Whether the situation constitutes a public health emergency of international concern under International Health Regulations will be discussed on 22 January 2020 by an emergency committee organized by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO had warned that a wider outbreak was possible, and there were concerns of further transmission during China's peak travel season around the Chinese New Year. The sudden increase in occurrences of the disease have raised questions relating to wildlife trade, uncertainties surrounding the virus’s ability to spread and cause harm, whether the virus has been circulating for longer than previously thought, its origin and the possibilty of the outbreak being a superspreader event.
The first suspected cases were reported on 31 December 2019, with the first instances of symptomatic illness appearing just over three weeks earlier on 8 December 2019. The market was closed off on 1 January 2020, and people who showed signs and symptoms of the coronavirus infection were isolated. Over 700 people, including more than 400 healthcare workers who came into close contact with possibly infected individuals, were initially monitored. After the development of a specific diagnostic PCR test for detecting the infection, the presence of 2019-nCoV was subsequently confirmed in 41 people in the original Wuhan cluster, of which two were later reported to be a married couple, one of whom had not been present in the marketplace, and another three who were members of the same family that worked at the marketplace's seafood stalls. The first confirmed death from the coronavirus infection occurred on 9 January 2020.
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