Identifying the first Chinese person infected with nCoV
Chinese government data recorded the first case of nCoV infection as a 55-year-old man in Hubei province, who developed the disease on November 17, 2019.
From this first person, in the last month and a half of 2019, health officials identified at least 266 patients. All of them are under medical observation.
From November 17, 2019, there were 1-5 new patients every day, with symptoms similar to the first person. By December 17, the total number of daily cases increased to double digits. By December 20, the total number of confirmed cases reached 60. At that time, the cause of the disease was still unknown.
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| Medical staff take a photo at the makeshift hospital in Wuchang, Wuhan, after the last patients were discharged on March 10, the hospital closed down and completed its mission. Photo: Chinadaily. |
On December 27, Zhang Jixian, a doctor at the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, reported to Chinese health authorities that the disease was "caused by a novel coronavirus." At this time, more than 180 people had been infected, and many doctors had yet to realize the severity of the disease.
By the last day of 2019, the number of confirmed cases had risen to 266. On the first day of 2020, the number of infections rose to 381.
In mid-January, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the cause of the disease was an unknown coronavirus strain, tentatively named nCoV. A month later, the WHO named the disease Covid-19 and called the new virus strain SARS-CoV-2.
Scientists have been trying to map the early transmission patterns of Covid-19 since the outbreak was first reported in Wuhan. Understanding how the virus spreads and identifying undetected cases will help contain the outbreak.