2019 Novel Coronavirus: First Reports Published

Coronaviruses typically cause common cold symptoms, but two previously identified betacoronaviruses, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, can result in severe pneumonia and death. Now, a third human coronavirus linked to serious illness — provisionally called 2019-nCoV — is spreading rapidly around the globe after first being described in Wuhan, China. Three reports describe the clinical and epidemiologic features of some of the first cases of this novel infection.

In a report by Zhu and colleagues, investigators with the China CDC describe three adults who were admitted to a hospital in Wuhan on December 27, 2019; the two patients for whom clinical information was available had pneumonia. One of the patients died and the other two recovered. 2019-nCoV wa…