On December
31, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization to a mysterious
respiratory illness afflicting people in Wuhan, China. On January 7, the
authorities said they had identified a new virus, a coronavirus in the same
family as the common cold, SARS and MERS.
Journalists
like me who cover infectious disease sit up and take notice when “new
coronavirus,” “SARS” and “MERS” show up in the same sentence.
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