The disease caused by novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) now has a formal name, COVID-19, and deaths in China topped 1,000 as the United States confirmed its 13th case, which involves a Wuhan evacuee who is quarantined in California.
In other developments, China reported 2,478 new illnesses amid a new report that more than 500 healthcare workers have been infected in its outbreak.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, announced the name of the disease at a media telebriefing.
He said that, under guidelines between the WHO, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), health officials had to find a name that didn't pinpoint a geographical location, an animal, or an individual or group of people. And it had to be pronounceable and related to the disease.
In a related development, the coronavirus study group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses—which is tasked with officially classifying and naming viruses—announced that the name of the virus is SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2).
So SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19.
Tedros also announced that the WHO has activated a United Nations crisis management team, which will be headed by Mike Ryan, MD, who directs the WHO's health emergencies program. He said the team will help the WHO focus on its health mission, while other UN groups add their expertise on the wider social and economic implications of the outbreak.
Also, the WHO began a two-day research meeting, pulling in about 400 global experts to chart a roadmap of questions that still need to be answered about the virus and the outbreak and how to go about answering them. He said drugs and vaccines are an important part of the research agenda.
At the briefing, Ryan said the outbreak response In Wuhan has transitioned to a different phase, now that two large hospitals have been built and plans are in place to handle sick people. He said Chinese health officials are now pushing surveillance efforts out into the community to find cases, identify contacts, and identify transmission chains.
Earlier, China reported 2,478 new cases, down from 3,062 new cases reported previously, for an overall total of 42,638 illnesses. Officials continue to report a steady stream of new deaths—they reported an additional 108, raising the outbreak's fatality count to 1,016, according to the latest update from the country's National Health Commission (NHC).
The country added 849 more serious cases, pushing that total to 7,333. So far, 3,996 people have been discharged from the hospital.
Four of China's provinces now have more than 1,000 cases: Guangdong, Zhejiang, Henan, and Hubei, according to the WHO's daily situation report. Hubei province, however, still has the strong majority of cases, with nearly 32,000 reported so far.
At least 500 healthcare workers were diagnosed as having COVID-19 by the middle of January, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, based on multiple hospital sources. The revelations fly in the face of earlier official reports from China that said healthcare worker infections were not a feature of the outbreak.
Hospital outbreaks, including infections in both healthcare workers and patients, have been a feature in other coronavirus outbreaks, including SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus). Earlier in the new outbreak, global health officials were eager to see if the pattern held for COVID-19, not only because they were worried about the workers at the outbreak's frontlines, but also to see if the virus was spreading easily among people—a key factor in forming their risk assessments.
So far, China had just acknowledged one cluster of 14 or 15 cases in a Wuhan hospital. Then Chinese scientists in an overview of 138 patients at Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan revealed that hospital-related transmission was responsible for 41 percent of the illnesses, which include 40 healthcare workers and 17 patients.
The SCMP report said doctors and nurses were told not to make public the number of healthcare worker infections in Wuhan hospitals. However, a slide circulating online showed that by the middle of January there were about 500 confirmed healthcare worker infections, with 600 more suspected. Doctors told the SCMP that they were faced with a shortage of protective gear, long working hours, and an unclear picture of how fast the virus was spreading.
The new report comes just days after a Wuhan doctor died from COVID-19 after he, along with others, were reprimanded for raising the initial alarm about a possible SARS-like outbreak linked to a local seafood market. The death of Li Wenliang, MD, sparked a public outcry about China's attempts to censor doctors' concerns early in the outbreak and about the risks to healthcare workers.
In related news, the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Health said it is evaluating two patients from the Miramar neighborhood of San Diego for COVID-19, one of whom tested positive and the other who is considered a person under investigation.
On Twitter, the hospital said both patients are doing well and have minimal symptoms. The case brings the United States' total to 13, which now includes seven in California.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in confirming the case, said the patient was under federal quarantine after recently returning from Wuhan. The CDC said it is tracing his or her contacts to assess if any had high-risk exposure.
A report from CNN said the patient is a woman who was sent back to quarantine at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar instead of being isolated at the hospital, following a mix-up in test specimens in which three other people tested negative.
