In a NEJM article from January 2020 the Chinese authors noted:
In December 2019, a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown cause was linked to a seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China. A previously unknown betacoronavirus was discovered through the use of unbiased sequencing in samples from patients with pneumonia. Human airway epithelial cells were used to isolate a novel coronavirus, named 2019-nCoV, which formed a clade within the subgenus sarbecovirus, Orthocoronavirinae subfamily. Different from both MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, 2019-nCoV is the seventh member of the family of coronaviruses that infect humans. Enhanced surveillance and further investigation are ongoing. (Funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Major Project for Control and Prevention of Infectious Disease in China.)
This was the beginning of a Global pandemic. I had noted at the time that this was potentially catastrophic. Unfortunately our Public Health folks were in my opinion clueless.
Yet there are still questions outstanding:
1. How is it transmitted? Nano particles via lacrimal ducts? So masks are useless?
2. How can it be prevented? Isolation vs careful interactions?
3. How extreme must measures be to reduce impact? Reasonable vs Catastrophic?
4. Is there a reliable vaccine available? mRNA vs classic (dead or attenuated virus)?
Just to name a few.....
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