Coronarovirus - A deadly entity indeed ...

The Wuhan coronavirus has sickened more than 1,100 people in Asia and at least two people in the United States, according to statements from health officials. Other cases have probably gone unreported. 

As of Saturday morning, at least 41 people have died.

A deadly entity indeed. 

Fifteen more people have died in the city of Wuhan, the Hubei provincial capital and epicenter of the outbreak, the health authorities in Hubei said.

The new figures, announced early Saturday, represented a nearly 60 percent jump from the previous death toll of 26.

Just three of the 41 deaths reported over all have taken place outside of Wuhan: one in another city in Hubei Province, one in Hebei Province, and one in Heilongjiang, near the Russian border.

The new victims ranged from 55 to 87 years old. Eleven were male, and four female.

Nationwide, more than 400 new cases of the virus were diagnosed, officials said early Saturday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China to nearly 1,300.

A deadly outbreak is growing. 

• Fifteen new deaths were reported in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.
• China restricts travel for 35 million people as the death toll rises, including a 36-year-old man.
• New cases are confirmed in the United States and France.
• Anger and mistrust spill over online
• Anxiety hangs over residents on Lunar New Year’s Eve.
• China reports two deaths outside the center of the outbreak.
• Experts are preparing for an outbreak that could last months.

Thus far, 2020 is starting off far worse than 2019 ...

Definition ...

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause infections in the respiratory system. There are seven known coronaviruses, including the newly identified  2019-nCoV. SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) was the coronavirus behind a deadly outbreak from 2002 to 2003, which infected  8,098 people and killed 774. MERS (also called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), first identified in 2012, is another recent and ongoing coronavirus outbreak, with cases reported as recently as this week. Of the 2,494 cases and 858 deaths associated with MERS, most occurred  in the Arabian Peninsula. The Wuhan coronavirus is different from these diseases, however, and it has never been seen in people before. 

Addendum ... Scientists Predict Wuhan's Outbreak Will Get Much Worse

Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

As more data on the new coronavirus circulating in China emerges, it’s becoming clear that whatever the country is experiencing now—dozens of deaths, hundreds of people hospitalized, cities of millions quarantined—is just the tip of the outbreak.

On Friday, a team of researchers based in the UK and US reported in a preliminary paper that the number of confirmed cases at the outbreak’s epicenter in Wuhan reflects only 5 percent of people who are actually infected. That would mean that for Tuesday, the last day they included in their analysis, the real number of cases is not 440, as has been reported, but is more like 12,000. The paper, which has not yet undergone peer review, appeared on the Medrxiv preprint server. Already, since Tuesday, the number of diagnosed coronavirus patients in Wuhan has shot up to 729.

And so it goes - K. Vonnegut