Coronavirus outbreak: everything you need to know

Public health experts around the globe are scrambling to understand, track, and contain a virus that appeared in Wuhan, China, at the beginning of December 2019. The WHO (WHO) onymous the disease caused by the virus COVID-19, which references the type of computer virus and the year IT emerged. The WHO declared that the virus is a pandemic .

The Verge will update this page as new information emerges. You can also find our breakdown of what research shows about how to live in a pandemic world here .

You can see where and how many cases of the illness have been reported happening this map . As this important story continues to unfold, our hope is to keep you up to date arsenic people work to empathise this virus and contain its spread.

Contents

Where did the virus come from?
Where is information technology spread?
How dangerous is this raw computer virus?
How easily send away the computer virus spread?
Can we treat this virus?
What can I do to protect myself and others?
If I already had COVID-19, am I immune?
What's occurrent in the US?

Where did the virus come from?

At the final stage of December, public health officials from China informed the World Health Organization that they had a problem: an unknown, new virus was causing pneumonia-wish illness in the city of Wuhan. They quickly unregenerate that it was a coronavirus and that IT was apace spreading through and outside of Wuhan.

Concern In China As Mystery Virus Spreads

Coronaviruses are common in animals of all kinds, and they sometimes can evolve into forms that can infect humans. Since the start of the 100, two opposite coronaviruses have jumped to humans, causing the SARS outbreak in 2002 and the MERS outbreak in 2012.

Scientists think this novel virus first became capable of jumping to human beings at the beginning of December. It to begin with seemed like the virus first infected people at a seafood market in Wuhan and spread from there. But unmatchable analysis of archaeozoic cases of the illness, published along January 24th, establish that the first patient to stick sick did not receive any contact with the market. Experts are still trying to trace the outbreak back to its source.

The type of animal the virus originated from is not semitransparent, although one psychoanalysis found that the genetic sequence of the new virus is 96 percentage identical to one coronavirus base in bats. Both SARS and MERS originated in bats.

Where is it spreading?

The virus is now spreading all over the world.

Although it originated in Nationalist China, the country took aggressive action at the start of the outbreak, closing inoperative transportation in more or less cities and suspending public gatherings. Officials detached sick people and aggressively tracked their contacts, and had a dedicated network of hospitals to run for the computer virus.

Countries ilk New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea have with success slowed the pandemic. The US has not, and it is an epicenter of the crisis.

How dangerous is this new virus?

It takes data about some how severe an illness is you bet easily it give the axe spread to set how "bad" IT can be. Epidemiologists often utilize this tool to assess new strains of the flu, for object lesson:

If an illness isn't very severe (and kills only a small percentage of populate), merely it's highly transmissible, it can still be devastating. An easily transmitted illness that kills a elflike per centum of the people it infects throne still cause a great deal of deaths, precisely because so many multitude go sick.

The WHO named the malady caused by the coronavirus COVID-19 — "co" and "American Virgin Islands" for coronavirus, "d" for disease, and "19" for the year when the disease emerged.

COVID-19 is a serious malady, and it's much more suicidal than the flu. One Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projection suggests that between 160 to 214 million people will eventually be pussy in the US and that between 200,000 and 1.7 million could die.

The symptoms of COVID-19 sustain ranged from mild, the like those in a cold, to severe. Some 80 per centum of confirmed cases are temperate and don't require hospitalization insurance — at to the lowest degree, 80 percent of the cases that we know about. It's still possible that there are more mild cases of the malady that seaport't been flagged, which would shrink the percentage of cases that are severe. In about 15 percentage of people, the illness is severe decent that they need to be hospitalized, and about 5 percent of cases are deprecative. It appears some half of the people with critical cases of the illness die from it.

"Mild" cases, though, can silence be debilitating. Some people with the disease say they couldn't get out of roll in the hay for weeks. For many an people, the effects of the illness linger: some people news report pouring fevers for months operating theatre experiencing waves of fatigue that make it hard to lam errands or walk heavenward the stairs. Researchers father't know why symptoms last soh long, even after populate no more test positive for the virus.

So far, experts say that about 1 percent of people who get sick with COVID-19 wish exit, though information technology's still too early to say for sure how often it is fatal. In the US, around 5 percent of multitude with confirmed cases of the computer virus give died from it, but that doesn't calculate for the masses who didn't know they were septicemic or who weren't fit to acquire tested.

Different groups of people are Thomas More at risk of having a severe suit of the illness or of dying from it. Most deaths in this outbreak let been in older people and those who throw underlying wellness issues, ilk heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. In that group, people are more at risk of exposure of dying. Or so 14 percent of people over the age of 80 who get sick will buy the farm, for exercise.

How easily toilet the virus spread?

The virus moves rapidly. The new coronavirus spreads quickly in contained environments, like on the Infield Princess cruise liner.

Early evidence suggested that, like other coronaviruses, the virus jumps 'tween people who are in very close meet with each other. Information technology also in all probability spreads when an septic person sneezes OR coughs. Coughs and sneezes acquire little droplets of mucus and spit. If these droplets make it into other person's eyes, rima oris, or intrude, they can get unbalanced. The viruses in those little droplets put up also fall onto surfaces, like tables or doorknobs — if mortal touches that surface and touches their eyes, oral fissure, or nose, they tail also get sick.

The smallest of those droplets can also linger in everyone's thoughts after a sick person coughs Beaver State sneezes or when they breathe and talk. People fundament probably get infected away those clouds of lingering droplets, even though scientists still Don River't know how often that actually happens. That's why existence inside, specially in poorly vented suite, is grievous: diminutive virus-carrying droplets wouldn't circularise verboten in the same way they would outdoors.

We also don't know when populate with COVID-19 become contagious or how long being contagious lasts. One study of nine people in Germany with mild cases of the illness found that they had high levels of the virus in their throats early on in the course of the disease before they felt very sick. Research out of China showed that people without symptoms still have high levels of the virus in their throats and noses.

It's probably possible for people to spread the computer virus to others in front they feel sick. It's also accomplishable that people who never feel sick and are in truth symptomless can taint different people. Researchers hush don't know how often those the great unwashe actually end up spreading the disease. Any studies indicate that people who serve have symptoms are practically Thomas More possible to spread the virus to others.

For each one sick person volition go on to infect, on the average, between 1.4 and 2.5 additional people, the WHO says, though that's an early estimate. Some other teams of researchers accept published their own estimates, with most locution a sick person wish infect an modal of round two or three people.

Those numbers are titled the virus's R0 (pronounced "R-naught"). The R0 is the mathematical representation of how well an infection might constitute able to spread. The higher the number, the easier the disease is to spread. For comparison, the R0 for SARS was between two and five. But that doesn't mean each sick person will actually infect that many people; quarantines and other actions taken to control outbreaks of a computer virus can bring down the act of people a sick somebody infects.

The R0 is too just an average. Researchers think this particular unwellness happens in clusters and tends to cause "superspreading" events. Some idea that as few every bit 10 percent of COVID-19 cases are responsible for 80 percentage of the disease's spread — that is, most people don't infect anyone other, and a few people set off chain reactions that infect dozens.

Buns we treat this virus?

Since the start of the pandemic, doctors take over gotten amend at treating patients with COVID-19 in the hospital. There still isn't so much doctors can do for multitude with mild cases of the illness WHO aren't sick enough to personify hospitalized. But trials of synthetic antibodies are underway, and they might be healthy to help prevent people who catch the computer virus from seemly seriously ill.

In October, the Food and Drug Giving medication (FDA) approved remdesivir, an medication medication earlier developed for Ebola, to deal the disease — even though nonsubjective trials found that it sole has a limited benefit.

There was a whole sle of early plug around the opposing-malaria medication chloroquine, but clinical trials showed that information technology doesn't in reality help COVID-19 patients. Clinical trials did prove, though, that a two-a-penny steroid called Dexone could help people World Health Organization are hospitalized with real severe cases of the disease.

Research teams and pharmaceutical companies are besides working to develop a vaccine that can protect people from contagion. However, vaccine development takes a long time. Even if everything goes smoothly, it will be around a year to 18 months from the start of the development process before ace is available, aforesaid Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

What can I do to protect myself and others?

Stay domicile if you're feeling sick, even if you're just a bit bit under the weather. Stay home as much as affirmable even if you're not feeling sick. If you do leave, wear a cloth mask or face covering when you're out in unrestricted, especially in places where it's hard to stay far away from others. Spell they're not perfect, a cloth face covering could help stop you from spreading virus-laden particles to other people, flatbottomed if you don't know you're diabetic. They could also partially block the computer virus from reaching your wind or mouth. If everyone wears them, much studies display they could assistanc slow the spread of the virus.

Many states are slowly starting to Lashkar-e-Taiba restaurants, barbershops, and retail stores open, even though the disease is still spreading rapidly in some places. The CDC released guidelines on June 12th, outlining the relative risk of informal activities and the shipway people should protect themselves when they embark outgoing to the bank or the gymnasium.

Disbursal time with a few people is less risky than hanging out with a large group, and everyone should wear masks and keep at a outstrip, the CDC says. The risk of contracting COVID-19 (or spreading it) goes up if you drop time with other citizenry indoors rather than outside.

Before determining if you should do a peculiar activenes, the agency recommends rational almost how many early cases are being reported apiece mean solar day in your country. If the causa numbers are low, the lay on the line is lower than if hundreds of new people are being diagnosed with COVID-19 daily. You should besides entertain how closely you'd be interacting with other people (and if they'd be wearing away a mask).

If you're a young, healthy person, you might not feel very seasick if you see COVID-19. But you could fleet it on to someone older or with a chronic health term who is more likely to have a severe vitrine of the disease.

If I already had COVID-19, am I immune?

Many researchers think over that after someone is putrefactive with the coronavirus, in that respect's a upstanding chance that person South Korean won't come sick from the virus again for or s still-open-ended amount of time. That's supported what scientists know about how most viruses make. Usually, when you're sick from a virus infection, your body develops antibodies against that virus. The next time you're exposed to the virus, those antibodies could stop it from turning into a raging illness — though that isn't always the case.

In that location isn't practical evidence that people who got sick once with COVID-19 can't get sick again because no studies have specifically tested that theme. But virologists Don't suppose that this virus behaves other than than almost other viruses — so people who did get sick are probably protected. The question, though, is for how protracted: for whatever viruses, the security fades after a class or a a few years. There aren't answers to that question yet.

What's happening in the US?

United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar declared a public health emergency in response to the coronavirus at the end of January, and President Trump expressed a national emergency in March.

As the overall encase counts rose through March and April, governors and localized officials closed nonessential businesses and told people to bring up from home and stay away from others. The interventions are helped to sluggish the dispersed of the disease in some areas, but many states — including Texas, Arizona, and Florida — lifted restrictions before in the public eye health experts thought it was safe.

Through the summertime of 2020, cases in those places quickly increased. After a protracted plateau, spikes in whatever Southern and Western US states pushed up new daily case numbers pool in the USA. A fall for surge hit the completely commonwealth, sending case Book of Numbers above the summertime highs. The Midwest has the highest burden of disease, but hospitalizations are climbing all finished the country.

Young in 2020, the virus spread unseen for weeks in the US. Initially, CDC guidelines did non allow testing unless a sick soul had been in a country with an ongoing propagate of the virus Beaver State who had been in contact with someone with a unchangeable eccentric of the disease could be tried. That suspended the diagnosis of patients who did not have those risk factors.

The US is doing approximately one million COVID-19 tests per day, according to data collected by volunteers at the COVID Tracking Projection. Testing was slow to trip the primer coat in the US. It took too long for the FDA and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to develop and distribute a functioning test and longer still for testing capacity to increase.

Many public health agencies across the country also calm down aren't getting in bear upon with everyone who tests positive for the computer virus to witness the people they may have exposed — a critical public health tool titled meet tracing. The US inevitably to scale up its touch tracing workforce in order to control the outbreak.

The US presently has the worst outbreak of any state in the international.