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Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the common cold (which is also caused by other viruses, predominantly rhinoviruses), while more lethal varieties can cause SARS, MERS and COVID-19, which is causing the ongoing pandemic. In cows and pigs they cause diarrhea, while in mice they cause hepatitis and encephalomyelitis.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales and realm . They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 26 to 32 kilobases, one of the largest among RNA viruses. They have characteristic club-shaped spikes that project from their surface, which in electron micrographs create an image reminiscent of the stellar corona, from which their name derives.

The name "coronavirus" is derived from Latin , meaning "crown" or "wreath", itself a borrowing from Greek korṓnē, "garland, wreath". The name was coined by June Almeida and David Tyrrell who first observed and studied human coronaviruses. The word was first used in print in 1968 by an informal group of virologists in the journal to designate the new family of viruses. The name refers to the characteristic appearance of virions (the infective form of the virus) by electron microscopy, which have a fringe of large, bulbous surface projections creating an image reminiscent of the solar corona or halo. This morphology is created by the viral spike peplomers, which are proteins on the surface of the virus.

The scientific name Coronavirus was accepted as a genus name by the International Committee for the Nomenclature of Viruses (later renamed International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses) in 1971. As the number of new species increased, the genus was split into four genera, namely Alphacoronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Deltacoronavirus, and Gammacoronavirus in 2009. The common name coronavirus is used to refer to any member of the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae. As of 2020, 45 species are officially recognised.

The earliest reports of a coronavirus infection in animals occurred in the late 1920s, when an acute respiratory infection of domesticated chickens emerged in North America. Arthur Schalk and M.C. Hawn in 1931 made the first detailed report which described a new respiratory infection of chickens in North Dakota. The infection of new-born chicks was characterized by gasping and listlessness with high mortality rates of 40-90%. Leland David Bushnell and Carl Alfred Brandly isolated the virus that caused the infection in 1933. The virus was then known as infectious bronchitis virus (IBV). Charles D. Hudson and Fred Robert Beaudette cultivated the virus for the first time in 1937. The specimen came to be known as the Beaudette strain. In the late 1940s, two more animal coronaviruses, JHM that causes brain disease (murine encephalitis) and mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) that causes hepatitis in mice were discovered. It was not realized at the time that these three different viruses were related.

Human coronaviruses were discovered in the 1960s using two different methods in the United Kingdom and the United States. E.C. Kendall, Malcolm Bynoe, and David Tyrrell working at the Common Cold Unit of the British Medical Research Council collected a unique common cold virus designated B814 in 1961. The virus could not be cultivated using standard techniques which had successfully cultivated rhinoviruses, adenoviruses and other known common cold viruses. In 1965, Tyrrell and Bynoe successfully cultivated the novel virus by serially passing it through organ culture of human embryonic trachea. The new cultivating method was introduced to the lab by Bertil Hoorn. The isolated virus when intranasally inoculated into volunteers caused a cold and was inactivated by ether which indicated it had a lipid envelope. Dorothy Hamre and John Procknow at the University of Chicago isolated a novel cold from medical students in 1962. They isolated and grew the virus in kidney tissue culture, designating it 229E. The novel virus caused a cold in volunteers and, like B814, was inactivated by ether.

Scottish virologist June Almeida at St Thomas' Hospital in London, collaborating with Tyrrell, compared the structures of IBV, B814 and 229E in 1967. Using electron microscopy the three viruses were shown to be morphologically related by their general shape and distinctive club-like spikes. A research group at the National Institute of Health the same year was able to isolate another member of this new group of viruses using organ culture and named one of the samples OC43 (OC for organ culture). Like B814, 229E, and IBV, the novel cold virus OC43 had distinctive club-like spikes when observed with the electron microscope.

The IBV-like novel cold viruses were soon shown to be also morphologically related to the mouse hepatitis virus. This new group of viruses were named coronaviruses after their distinctive morphological appearance. Human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43 continued to be studied in subsequent decades. The coronavirus strain B814 was lost. It is not known which present human coronavirus it was. Other human coronaviruses have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2003, HCoV HKU1 in 2004, MERS-CoV in 2013, and SARS-CoV-2 in 2019. There have also been a large number of animal coronaviruses identified since the 1960s.

Microbiology

Coronaviruses are large, roughly spherical particles with unique surface projections. Their size is highly variable with average diameters of 80 to 120 nm. Extreme sizes are known from 50 to 200 nm in diameter. The total molecular mass is on average 40,000 kDa. They are enclosed in an envelope embedded with a number of protein molecules. The lipid bilayer envelope, membrane proteins, and nucleocapsid protect the virus when it is outside the host cell.

The viral envelope is made up of a lipid bilayer in which the membrane (M), envelope (E) and spike (S) structural proteins are anchored. The molar ratio of E:S:M in the lipid bilayer is approximately 1:20:300. The E and M protein are the structural proteins that combined with the lipid bilayer to shape the viral envelope and maintain its size. S proteins are needed for interaction with the host cells. But human coronavirus NL63 is peculiar in that its M protein has the binding site for the host cell, and not its S protein. The diameter of the envelope is 85 nm. The envelope of the virus in electron micrographs appears as a distinct pair of electron-dense shells (shells that are relatively opaque to the electron beam used to scan the virus particle).

The M protein is the main structural protein of the envelope that provides the overall shape and is a type III membrane protein. It consists of 218 to 263 Amino acid residues and forms a layer 7.8 nm thick. It has three domains, a short N-terminal ectodomain, a triple-spanning transmembrane domain, and a C-terminal endodomain. The C-terminal domain forms a matrix-like lattice that adds to the extra-thickness of the envelope. Different species can have either N- or O-linked glycans in their protein amino-terminal domain. The M protein is crucial during the assembly, budding, envelope formation, and pathogenesis stages of the virus lifecycle.

The E proteins are minor structural proteins and highly variable in different species. There are only about 20 copies of the E protein molecule in a coronavirus particle. They are 8.4 to 12 kDa in size and are composed of 76 to 109 amino acids. They are integral proteins (i.e. embedded in the lipid layer) and have two domains namely a transmembrane domain and an extramembrane C-terminal domain. They are almost fully α-helical, with a single α-helical transmembrane domain, and form pentameric (five-molecular) ion channels in the lipid bilayer. They are responsible for virion assembly, intracellular trafficking and morphogenesis (budding).

The spikes are the most distinguishing feature of coronaviruses and are responsible for the corona- or halo-like surface. On average a coronavirus particle has 74 surface spikes. Each spike is about 20 nm long and is composed of a trimer of the Sprotein. The S protein is in turn composed of an S1 and S2 subunit. The homotrimeric Sprotein is a class I fusion protein which mediates the receptor binding and membrane fusion between the virus and host cell. The S1 subunit forms the head of the spike and has the receptor-binding domain (RBD). The S2 subunit forms the stem which anchors the spike in the viral envelope and on protease activation enables fusion. The two subunits remain noncovalently linked as they are exposed on the viral surface until they attach to the host cell membrane. In a functionally active state, three S1 are attached to two S2 subunits. The subunit complex is split into individual subunits when the virus binds and fuses with the host cell under the action of proteases such as cathepsin family and transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) of the host cell.

S1 proteins are the most critical components in terms of infection. They are also the most variable components as they are responsible for host cell specificity. They possess two major domains named N-terminal domain (S1-NTD) and C-terminal domain (S1-CTD), both of which serve as the receptor-binding domains. The NTDs recognize and bind sugars on the surface of the host cell. An exception is the MHV NTD that binds to a protein receptor carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule 1 (CEACAM1). S1-CTDs are responsible for recognizing different protein receptors such as angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), aminopeptidase N (APN), and dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4).

A subset of coronaviruses (specifically the members of betacoronavirus subgroup A) also has a shorter spike-like surface protein called hemagglutinin esterase (HE). The HE proteins occur as homodimers composed of about 400 amino acid residues and are 40 to 50 kDa in size. They appear as tiny surface projections of 5 to 7 nm long embedded in between the spikes. They help in the attachment to and detachment from the host cell.

Inside the envelope, there is the nucleocapsid, which is formed from multiple copies of the nucleocapsid (N) protein, which are bound to the positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome in a continuous Beads-on-a-string type conformation. N protein is a phosphoprotein of 43 to 50 kDa in size, and is divided into three conserved domains. The majority of the protein is made up of domains 1 and 2, which are typically rich in arginines and lysines. Domain 3 has a short carboxy terminal end and has a net negative charge due to excess of acidic over basic amino acid residues.

Coronaviruses contain a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA genome. The genome size for coronaviruses ranges from 26.4 to 31.7 kilobases. The genome size is one of the largest among RNA viruses. The genome has a 5′ methylated cap and a 3′ polyadenylated tail.

The genome organization for a coronavirus is 5′-leader-UTR-replicase (ORF1ab)-spike (S)-envelope (E)-membrane (M)-nucleocapsid (N)- 3′UTR-poly (A) tail. The open reading frames 1a and 1b, which occupy the first two-thirds of the genome, encode the replicase polyprotein (pp1ab). The replicase polyprotein self cleaves to form 16 nonstructural proteins (nsp1-nsp16).

The later reading frames encode the four major structural proteins: spike, envelope, membrane, and nucleocapsid. Interspersed between these reading frames are the reading frames for the accessory proteins. The number of accessory proteins and their function is unique depending on the specific coronavirus.

Replication cycle

Infection begins when the viral spike protein attaches to its complementary host cell receptor. After attachment, a protease of the host cell cleaves and activates the receptor-attached spike protein. Depending on the host cell protease available, cleavage and activation allows the virus to enter the host cell by endocytosis or direct fusion of the viral envelope with the host membrane.

Genome translation

On entry into the host cell, the virus particle is uncoated, and its genome enters the cell cytoplasm. The coronavirus RNA genome has a 5′ methylated cap and a 3′ polyadenylated tail, which allows it to act like a messenger RNA and be directly translated by the host cell's ribosomes. The host ribosomes translate the initial overlapping open reading frames ORF1a and ORF1b of the virus genome into two large overlapping polyproteins, pp1a and pp1ab.

The larger polyprotein pp1ab is a result of a -1 ribosomal frameshift caused by a slippery sequence (UUUAAAC) and a downstream RNA pseudoknot at the end of open reading frame ORF1a. The ribosomal frameshift allows for the continuous translation of ORF1a followed by ORF1b.

The polyproteins have their own proteases, PLpro (nsp3) and 3CLpro (nsp5), which cleave the polyproteins at different specific sites. The cleavage of polyprotein pp1ab yields 16 nonstructural proteins (nsp1 to nsp16). Product proteins include various replication proteins such as RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (nsp12), RNA helicase (nsp13), and exoribonuclease (nsp14).

Replicase-transcriptase

A number of the nonstructural proteins coalesce to form a multi-protein replicase-transcriptase complex (RTC). The main replicase-transcriptase protein is the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). It is directly involved in the replication and transcription of RNA from an RNA strand. The other nonstructural proteins in the complex assist in the replication and transcription process. The exoribonuclease nonstructural protein, for instance, provides extra fidelity to replication by providing a proofreading function which the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase lacks.

Replication - One of the main functions of the complex is to replicate the viral genome. RdRp directly mediates the synthesis of negative-sense genomic RNA from the positive-sense genomic RNA. This is followed by the replication of positive-sense genomic RNA from the negative-sense genomic RNA.

Transcription - The other important function of the complex is to transcribe the viral genome. RdRp directly mediates the synthesis of negative-sense subgenomic RNA molecules from the positive-sense genomic RNA. This process is followed by the transcription of these negative-sense subgenomic RNA molecules to their corresponding positive-sense mRNAs. The subgenomic mRNAs form a " nested set" which have a common 5'-head and partially duplicate 3'-end.

Recombination - The replicase-transcriptase complex is also capable of genetic recombination when at least two viral genomes are present in the same infected cell. RNA recombination appears to be a major driving force in determining genetic variability within a coronavirus species, the capability of a coronavirus species to jump from one host to another and, infrequently, in determining the emergence of novel coronaviruses. The exact mechanism of recombination in coronaviruses is unclear, but likely involves template switching during genome replication.

Assembly and release

The replicated positive-sense genomic RNA becomes the genome of the progeny viruses. The mRNAs are gene transcripts of the last third of the virus genome after the initial overlapping reading frame. These mRNAs are translated by the host's ribosomes into the structural proteins and many accessory proteins. RNA translation occurs inside the endoplasmic reticulum. The viral structural proteins S, E, and M move along the secretory pathway into the Golgi intermediate compartment. There, the Mproteins direct most protein-protein interactions required for the assembly of viruses following its binding to the nucleocapsid. Progeny viruses are then released from the host cell by exocytosis through secretory vesicles. Once released the viruses can infect other host cells.

Transmission

Infected carriers are able to shed viruses into the environment. The interaction of the coronavirus spike protein with its complementary cell receptor is central in determining the tissue tropism, infectivity, and species range of the released virus. Coronaviruses mainly target epithelial cells. They are transmitted from one host to another host, depending on the coronavirus species, by either an aerosol, fomite, or fecal-oral route.

Human coronaviruses infect the epithelial cells of the respiratory tract, while animal coronaviruses generally infect the epithelial cells of the digestive tract. SARS coronavirus, for example, infects the human epithelial cells of the lungs via an aerosol route by binding to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. Transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus (TGEV) infects the pig epithelial cells of the digestive tract via a fecal-oral route by binding to the Alanine aminopeptidase (APN) receptor.

Classification

Coronaviruses form the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, which is one of two sub-families in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm They are divided into the four genera: Alphacoronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Gammacoronavirus and Deltacoronavirus. Alphacoronaviruses and betacoronaviruses infect mammals, while gammacoronaviruses and deltacoronaviruses primarily infect birds.

The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all coronaviruses is estimated to have existed as recently as 8000 BCE, although some models place the common ancestor as far back as 55 million years or more, implying long term coevolution with bat and avian species. The most recent common ancestor of the alphacoronavirus line has been placed at about 2400 BCE, of the betacoronavirus line at 3300 BCE, of the gammacoronavirus line at 2800 BCE, and the deltacoronavirus line at about 3000 BCE. Bats and birds, as warm-blooded flying vertebrates, are an ideal natural reservoir for the coronavirus gene pool (with bats the reservoir for alphacoronaviruses and betacoronavirus - and birds the reservoir for gammacoronaviruses and deltacoronaviruses). The large number and global range of bat and avian species that host viruses have enabled extensive evolution and dissemination of coronaviruses.

Many human coronaviruses have their origin in bats. The human coronavirus NL63 shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus (ARCoV.2) between 1190 and 1449 CE. The human coronavirus 229E shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus (GhanaGrp1 Bt CoV) between 1686 and 1800 CE. More recently, alpaca coronavirus and human coronavirus 229E diverged sometime before 1960. MERS-CoV emerged in humans from bats through the intermediate host of camels. MERS-CoV, although related to several bat coronavirus species, appears to have diverged from these several centuries ago. The most closely related bat coronavirus and SARS-CoV diverged in 1986. The ancestors of SARS-CoV first infected leaf-nose bats of the genus Hipposideridae; subsequently, they spread to horseshoe bats in the species Rhinolophidae, then to Asian palm civets, and finally to humans.

Unlike other betacoronaviruses, bovine coronavirus of the species Betacoronavirus 1 and subgenus Embecovirus is thought to have originated in rodents and not in bats. In the 1790s, equine coronavirus diverged from the bovine coronavirus after a cross-species jump. Later in the 1890s, human coronavirus OC43 diverged from bovine coronavirus after another cross-species spillover event. It is speculated that the flu pandemic of 1890 may have been caused by this spillover event, and not by the influenza virus, because of the related timing, neurological symptoms, and unknown causative agent of the pandemic. Besides causing respiratory infections, human coronavirus OC43 is also suspected of playing a role in neurological diseases. In the 1950s, the human coronavirus OC43 began to diverge into its present genotypes. Phylogenetically, mouse hepatitis virus (Murine coronavirus), which infects the mouse's liver and central nervous system, is related to human coronavirus OC43 and bovine coronavirus. Human coronavirus HKU1, like the aforementioned viruses, also has its origins in rodents.

Infection in humans

Coronaviruses vary significantly in risk factor. Some can kill more than 30% of those infected, such as MERS-CoV, and some are relatively harmless, such as the common cold. Coronaviruses can cause colds with major symptoms, such as fever, and a sore throat from swollen adenoids. Coronaviruses can cause pneumonia (either direct viral pneumonia or secondary bacterial pneumonia) and bronchitis (either direct viral bronchitis or secondary bacterial bronchitis). The human coronavirus discovered in 2003, SARS-CoV, which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), has a unique pathogenesis because it causes both upper and lower respiratory tract infections.

Six species of human coronaviruses are known, with one species subdivided into two different strains, making seven strains of human coronaviruses altogether.

Four human coronaviruses produce symptoms that are generally mild, even though it is contended they might have been more aggressive in the past:

1. Human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43), β-CoV

2. Human coronavirus HKU1 (HCoV-HKU1), β-CoV

3. Human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E), α-CoV

4. Human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63), α-CoV-

Three human coronaviruses produce potentially severe symptoms:

1. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), β-CoV (identified in 2003)

2. Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), β-CoV (identified in 2012)

3. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), β-CoV (identified in 2019)

These cause the diseases commonly called SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 respectively.

Common cold

Although the common cold is usually caused by rhinoviruses, in about 15% of cases the cause is a coronavirus. The human coronaviruses HCoV-OC43, HCoV-HKU1, HCoV-229E, and HCoV-NL63 continually circulate in the human population in adults and children worldwide and produce the generally mild symptoms of the common cold. The four mild coronaviruses have a seasonal incidence occurring in the winter months in temperate climates. There is no preponderance in any season in tropical climates.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

In 2003, following the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which had begun the prior year in Asia, and secondary cases elsewhere in the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a press release stating that a novel coronavirus identified by several laboratories was the causative agent for SARS. The virus was officially named the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). More than 8,000 people from 29 countries and territories were infected, and at least 774 died.

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)

In September 2012, a new type of coronavirus was identified, initially called Novel Coronavirus 2012, and now officially named Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The World Health Organization issued a global alert soon after. The WHO update on 28 September 2012 said the virus did not seem to pass easily from person to person. However, on 12 May 2013, a case of human-to-human transmission in France was confirmed by the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. In addition, cases of human-to-human transmission were reported by the Ministry of Health in Tunisia. Two confirmed cases involved people who seemed to have caught the disease from their late father, who became ill after a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Despite this, it appears the virus had trouble spreading from human to human, as most individuals who are infected do not transmit the virus. By 30 October 2013, there were 124 cases and 52 deaths in Saudi Arabia.

After the Dutch Erasmus Medical Centre sequenced the virus, the virus was given a new name, Human Coronavirus-Erasmus Medical Centre (HCoV-EMC). The final name for the virus is Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The only U.S. cases (both survived) were recorded in May 2014.

In May 2015, an outbreak of MERS-CoV occurred in the Republic of Korea, when a man who had traveled to the Middle East, visited four hospitals in the Seoul area to treat his illness. This caused one of the largest outbreaks of MERS-CoV outside the Middle East. As of December 2019, 2,468 cases of MERS-CoV infection had been confirmed by laboratory tests, 851 of which were fatal, a mortality rate of approximately 34.5%.

In December 2019, a pneumonia outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China. On 31 December 2019, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of coronavirus, which was given the interim name 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization, later renamed SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses.

As of 16 September 2022, there have been at least 6,523,438 confirmed deaths and more than 611,038,123 confirmed cases in the COVID-19 pandemic. The Wuhan strain has been identified as a new strain of Betacoronavirus from group 2B with approximately 70% genetic similarity to the SARS-CoV. The virus has a 96% similarity to a bat coronavirus, so it is widely suspected to originate from bats as well.

During a surveillance study of archived samples of Malaysian viral pneumonia patients, virologists identified a strain of canine coronavirus which has infected humans in 2018.

Infection in animals

Coronaviruses have been recognized as causing pathological conditions in veterinary medicine since the 1930s. They infect a range of animals including swine, cattle, horses, camels, cats, dogs, rodents, birds and bats. The majority of animal related coronaviruses infect the intestinal tract and are transmitted by a fecal-oral route. Significant research efforts have been focused on elucidating the viral pathogenesis of these animal coronaviruses, especially by virologists interested in veterinary and zoonotic diseases.

Farm animals

Coronaviruses infect domesticated birds. Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), a type of coronavirus, causes avian infectious bronchitis. The virus is of concern to the poultry industry because of the high mortality from infection, its rapid spread, and its effect on production. The virus affects both meat production and egg production and causes substantial economic loss. In chickens, infectious bronchitis virus targets not only the respiratory tract but also the urogenital tract. The virus can spread to different organs throughout the chicken. The virus is transmitted by aerosol and food contaminated by feces. Different vaccines against IBV exist and have helped to limit the spread of the virus and its variants. Infectious bronchitis virus is one of a number of strains of the species Avian coronavirus. Another strain of avian coronavirus is turkey coronavirus (TCV) which causes enteritis in turkeys.

Coronaviruses also affect other branches of animal husbandry such as pig farming and the Cattle raising. Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV), which is related to bat coronavirus HKU2, causes diarrhea in pigs. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a coronavirus that has recently emerged and similarly causes diarrhea in pigs. Transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), which is a member of the species Alphacoronavirus 1, is another coronavirus that causes diarrhea in young pigs. In the cattle industry bovine coronavirus (BCV), which is a member of the species Betacoronavirus 1 and related to HCoV-OC43, is responsible for severe profuse enteritis in young calves.

Domestic pets

Coronaviruses infect domestic pets such as cats, dogs, and ferrets. There are two forms of feline coronavirus which are both members of the species Alphacoronavirus 1. Feline enteric coronavirus is a pathogen of minor clinical significance, but spontaneous mutation of this virus can result in feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), a disease with high mortality. There are two different coronaviruses that infect dogs. Canine coronavirus (CCoV), which is a member of the species Alphacoronavirus 1, causes mild gastrointestinal disease. Canine respiratory coronavirus (CRCoV), which is a member of the species Betacoronavirus 1 and related to HCoV-OC43, cause respiratory disease. Similarly, there are two types of coronavirus that infect ferrets. Ferret enteric coronavirus causes a gastrointestinal syndrome known as epizootic catarrhal enteritis (ECE), and a more lethal systemic version of the virus (like FIP in cats) known as ferret systemic coronavirus (FSC).

Laboratory animals

Coronaviruses infect laboratory animals. Mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), which is a member of the species Murine coronavirus, causes an epidemic murine illness with high mortality, especially among colonies of laboratory mice. Prior to the discovery of SARS-CoV, MHV was the best-studied coronavirus both and as well as at the molecular level. Some strains of MHV cause a progressive demyelinating encephalitis in mice which has been used as a murine model for multiple sclerosis. Sialodacryoadenitis virus (SDAV), which is a strain of the species Murine coronavirus, is highly infectious coronavirus of laboratory rats, which can be transmitted between individuals by direct contact and indirectly by aerosol. Rabbit enteric coronavirus causes acute gastrointestinal disease and diarrhea in young European rabbits. Mortality rates are high.

Prevention and treatment

A number of vaccines using different methods have been developed against human coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Antiviral targets against human coronaviruses have also been identified such as viral proteases, polymerases, and entry proteins. Drugs are in development which target these proteins and the different steps of viral replication.

Vaccines are available for animal coronaviruses IBV, TGEV, and Canine CoV, although their effectiveness is limited. In the case of outbreaks of highly contagious animal coronaviruses, such as PEDV, measures such as destruction of entire herds of pigs may be used to prevent transmission to other herds.

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24. Decaro N (2011). Tidona C, Darai G (eds.). Betacoronavirus. The Springer Index of Viruses. Springer. pp. 385-401. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-95919-1_57. ISBN 978-0-387-95919-1. PMC 7176184.

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Further reading

Acheson, N. H. (2011). "Chapter 14: Coronaviruses". Fundamentals of molecular virology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 159-171. ISBN 9780470900598.

Alwan A, Mahjour J, Memish ZA (2013). "Novel coronavirus infection: time to stay ahead of the curve". Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal. 19 Suppl 1: S3-4. doi:10.26719/2013.19.supp1.S3. PMID 23888787.

Laude H, Rasschaert D, Delmas B, Godet M, Gelfi J, Charley B (June 1990). "Molecular biology of transmissible gastroenteritis virus". Veterinary Microbiology. 23 (1-4): 147-54. doi:10.1016/0378-1135(90)90144-K. PMC . PMID 2169670.

Sola I, Alonso S, Zúñiga S, Balasch M, Plana-Durán J, Enjuanes L (April 2003). "Engineering the transmissible gastroenteritis virus genome as an expression vector inducing lactogenic immunity". Journal of Virology. 77 (7): 4357-69. doi:10.1128/JVI.77.7.4357-4369.2003. PMC . PMID 12634392.

Tajima M (1970). "Morphology of transmissible gastroenteritis virus of pigs. A possible member of coronaviruses. Brief report". Archiv für die Gesamte Virusforschung. 29 (1): 105-08. doi:10.1007/BF01253886. PMC . PMID 4195092. S2CID 42104521.

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Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the common cold (which is also caused by other viruses, predominantly rhinoviruses), while more lethal varieties can cause SARS, MERS and COVID-19, which is causing the ongoing pandemic.

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Students line up to sanitize their hands to avoid the contact of coronavirus in Cambodia (AP ... [+]
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The headline-making coronavirus that originated in China continues to spread with nearly 3,000 confirmed cases and 80 deaths across 12 countries according to the World Health Organization. The potential business impacts could be devastating. What should all businesses be doing now?

Markets are already falling as the pandemic takes its toll on the global economy. World Bank findings suggest that a pandemic of the same severity as the 1918 influenza pandemic could reduce global GDP by 5%. Another study predicted income losses of over 12% of gross national income worldwide, including losses of over 50% of the gross national incomes of lower-income countries.

While there are those companies that are prepared, organizations as a whole are vastly underprepared to respond to a pandemic. Pandemic preparedness programs are chronically understaffed and underbudgeted. Why? Because it's a low probability risk in any given year. Insurance models predict that the annual risk of an influenza outbreak on the scale of the 1918 pandemic lies between 0.5% and 1.0%.

The trouble is that while annual probability is low, the potential impact is devastating. Six pandemics in modern history led to excess mortality rates ranging between 0.03% and 0.08% of world population. Today, that would be the equivalent of between 2 million and 6 million deaths globally. That is why quarantines and social distancing policies are now being imposed by governments.

As a result of travel bans and other measures, global businesses are already taking a hit. Disney closed two theme parks. Starbucks shuttered 90 stores, with KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's following suit. These business, and more, are enacting carefully crafted, complex business continuity plans as well as more specific pandemic preparedness plans that enable them to respond quickly. Many businesses will impose travel restrictions on employees as a precaution, which could have long-ranging implications. They will also be relying on business interruption insurance coverage and should check their coverage to confirm that it is sufficient. Legal protection including force majeure clauses, which will likely be triggered here, should also be reviewed at this time.

The travel industry is especially impacted as a result of decreased travel during the Chinese Lunar New Year season, which is typically the largest annual migration of people globally. Major hotel chains like IHG, Marriott, and Accor are waiving cancellation fees. Airlines are offering refunds. And China's largest travel agency Trip.com is providing free cancellations on hotels, car rental services and tickets for tourist attractions; their stock dropped 18% last week in New York.

There could also be a devastating impact on global supply chains if social distancing is mandated requiring factory employees to stay home and not report in to work. Many Chinese companies are taking the precaution of mandating social distancing themselves by ordering workers who were in the affected areas to work from home, including Bytedance (the company that owns TikTok) and Tencent. But work-from-home strategies won't work for manufacturers like automakers and the many organizations that rely on production supply chains out of China. Renault, for example, is already feeling the pinch. Businesses that source critical supply components out of China should assess their stocks, think about stockpiling supplies from at-risk countries now and explore workarounds with alternate suppliers.

What can all businesses do now? Update your pandemic plans. Talk to employees. Hysteria is also contagious. Communicate what your plans could mean for employees including health and risk education, social distancing through work from home where possible, and stockpiling of supplies. Let them know you are prepared and are protecting them.

What can everyone do now? Everyone should have a personal plan that includes knowledge of how to prevent the spread of infection and supplies like stockpiles of food, water, medicine and hygiene tools like face masks at home. This should be done now before there is a run on supplies (think about those empty shelves before a hurricane).

With a focus on preparedness and swift action, we can help lessen the spread of a pandemic and reduce the business as well as the human impact.

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What Businesses Can Do In Response To The Coronavirus

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The headline-making coronavirus that originated in China continues to spread with nearly 3,000 confirmed cases and 80 deaths across 12 countries according to the World Health Organization. The potential business impacts could be devastating. What should all businesses be doing now? Markets are already falling as the pandemic takes its toll on the global economy.

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Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope

The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some treat the world as one simple object while others analyze the world as a complex made up of parts.

In scientific cosmology, the world or universe is commonly defined as "[t]he totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". Theories of modality talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been. Phenomenology, starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". In philosophy of mind, the world is contrasted with the mind as that which is represented by the mind. Theology conceptualizes the world in relation to God, for example, as God's creation, as identical to God or as the two being interdependent. In religions, there is a tendency to downgrade the material or sensory world in favor of a spiritual world to be sought through religious practice. A comprehensive representation of the world and our place in it, as is found in religions, is known as a worldview. Cosmogony is the field that studies the origin or creation of the world while eschatology refers to the science or doctrine of the last things or of the end of the world.

In various contexts, the term "world" takes a more restricted meaning associated, for example, with the Earth and all life on it, with humanity as a whole or with an international or intercontinental scope. In this sense, world history refers to the history of humanity as a whole and world politics is the discipline of political science studying issues that transcend nations and continents. Other examples include terms such as " world religion", " world language", " world government", " world war", " world population", " world economy" or " world championship".

The corresponding word in Latin is mundus, literally 'clean, elegant', itself a loan translation of Greek 'orderly arrangement'. While the Germanic word thus reflects a mythological notion of a "domain of Man" (compare Midgard), presumably as opposed to the divine sphere on the one hand and the chthonic sphere of the underworld on the other, the Greco-Latin term expresses a notion of creation as an act of establishing order out of chaos.

Conceptions

Different fields often work with quite different conceptions of the essential features associated with the term "world". Some conceptions see the world as unique: there can be no more than one world. Others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some see worlds as complex things composed of many substances as their parts while others hold that worlds are simple in the sense that there is only one substance: the world as a whole. Some characterize worlds in terms of objective spacetime while others define them relative to the horizon present in each experience. These different characterizations are not always exclusive: it may be possible to combine some without leading to a contradiction. Most of them agree that worlds are unified totalities.

Monism and pluralism

Monism is a thesis about oneness: that only one thing exists in a certain sense. The denial of monism is pluralism, the thesis that, in a certain sense, more than one thing exists. There are many forms of monism and pluralism, but in relation to the world as a whole, two are of special interest: existence monism/pluralism and priority monism/pluralism. Existence monism states that the world is the only concrete object there is. This means that all the concrete "objects" we encounter in our daily lives, including apples, cars and ourselves, are not truly objects in a strict sense. Instead, they are just dependent aspects of the world-object. Such a world-object is simple in the sense that it does not have any genuine parts. For this reason, it has also been referred to as "blobject" since it lacks an internal structure like a blob. Priority monism allows that there are other concrete objects besides the world. But it holds that these objects do not have the most fundamental form of existence, that they somehow depend on the existence of the world. The corresponding forms of pluralism state that the world is complex in the sense that it is made up of concrete, independent objects.

Scientific cosmology

Scientific cosmology can be defined as the science of the universe as a whole. In it, the terms " universe" and " cosmos" are usually used as synonyms for the term "world". One common definition of the world/universe found in this field is as "[t]he totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". Some definitions emphasize that there are two other aspects to the universe besides spacetime: forms of energy or matter, like stars and particles, and laws of nature. World-conceptions in this field differ both concerning their notion of spacetime and of the contents of spacetime. The theory of relativity plays a central role in modern cosmology and its conception of space and time. A difference from its predecessors is that it conceives space and time not as distinct dimensions but as a single four-dimensional manifold called spacetime. This can be seen in special relativity in relation to the Minkowski metric, which includes both spatial and temporal components in its definition of distance. General relativity goes one step further by integrating the concept of mass into the concept of spacetime as its curvature. Quantum cosmology uses a classical notion of spacetime and conceives the whole world as one big wave function expressing the probability of finding particles in a given location.

The world-concept plays a role in many modern theories of modality, sometimes in the form of possible worlds. A possible world is a complete and consistent way how things could have been. The actual world is a possible world since the way things are is a way things could have been. There are many other ways things could have been besides how they actually are. For example, Hillary Clinton did not win the 2016 US election, but she could have won them. So there is a possible world in which she did. There is a vast number of possible worlds, one corresponding to each such difference, no matter how small or big, as long as no outright contradictions are introduced this way.

Possible worlds are often conceived as abstract objects, for example, in terms of non-obtaining states of affairs or as maximally consistent sets of propositions. On such a view, they can even be seen as belonging to the actual world. Another way to conceive possible worlds, made famous by David Lewis, is as concrete entities. On this conception, there is no important difference between the actual world and possible worlds: both are conceived as concrete, inclusive and spatiotemporally connected. The only difference is that the actual world is the world we live in, while other possible worlds are not inhabited by us but by our counterparts. Everything within a world is spatiotemporally connected to everything else but the different worlds do not share a common spacetime: They are spatiotemporally isolated from each other. This is what makes them separate worlds.

It has been suggested that, besides possible worlds, there are also impossible worlds. Possible worlds are ways things could have been, so impossible worlds are ways things could not have been. Such worlds involve a contradiction, like a world in which Hillary Clinton both won and lost the 2016 US election. Both possible and impossible worlds have in common the idea that they are totalities of their constituents.

Phenomenology

Within phenomenology, worlds are defined in terms of horizons of experiences. When we perceive an object, like a house, we do not just experience this object at the center of our attention but also various other objects surrounding it, given in the periphery. The term "horizon" refers to these co-given objects, which are usually experienced only in a vague, indeterminate manner. The perception of a house involves various horizons, corresponding to the neighborhood, the city, the country, the Earth, etc. In this context, the world is the biggest horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". It is common among phenomenologists to understand the world not just as a spatiotemporal collection of objects but as additionally incorporating various other relations between these objects. These relations include, for example, indication-relations that help us anticipate one object given the appearances of another object and means-end-relations or functional involvements relevant for practical concerns.

Philosophy of mind

In philosophy of mind, the term "world" is commonly used in contrast to the term "mind" as that which is represented by the mind. This is sometimes expressed by stating that there is a gap between mind and world and that this gap needs to be overcome for representation to be successful. One problem in philosophy of mind is to explain how the mind is able to bridge this gap and to enter into genuine mind-world-relations, for example, in the form of perception, knowledge or action. This is necessary for the world to be able to rationally constrain the activity of the mind. According to a realist position, the world is something distinct and independent from the mind. Idealists conceive of the world as partially or fully determined by the mind. Immanuel Kant's transcendental idealism, for example, posits that the spatiotemporal structure of the world is imposed by the mind on reality but lacks independent existence otherwise. A more radical idealist conception of the world can be found in Berkeley's subjective idealism, which holds that the world as a whole, including all everyday objects like tables, cats, trees and ourselves, "consists of nothing but minds and ideas".

Different theological positions hold different conceptions of the world based on its relation to God. Classical theism states that God is wholly distinct from the world. But the world depends for its existence on God, both because God created the world and because He maintains or conserves it. This is sometimes understood in analogy to how humans create and conserve ideas in their imagination, with the difference being that the divine mind is vastly more powerful. On such a view, God has absolute, ultimate reality in contrast to the lower ontological status ascribed to the world. God's involvement in the world is often understood along the lines of a personal, benevolent God who looks after and guides His creation. Deists agree with theists that God created the world but deny any subsequent, personal involvement in it. Pantheists reject the separation between God and world. Instead, they claim that the two are identical. This means that there is nothing to the world that does not belong to God and that there is nothing to God beyond what is found in the world. Panentheism constitutes a middle ground between theism and pantheism. Against theism, it holds that God and the world are interrelated and depend on each other. Against pantheism, it holds that there is no outright identity between the two.

History of philosophy

In philosophy, the term world has several possible meanings. In some contexts, it refers to everything that makes up reality or the physical universe. In others, it can mean have a specific ontological sense (see world disclosure). While clarifying the concept of world has arguably always been among the basic tasks of Western philosophy, this theme appears to have been raised explicitly only at the start of the twentieth century,

Plato is well known for his theory of forms, which posits the existence of two different worlds: the sensible world and the intelligible world. The sensible world is the world we live in, filled with changing physical things we can see, touch and interact with. The intelligible world is the world of invisible, eternal, changeless forms like goodness, beauty, unity and sameness. Plato ascribes a lower ontological status to the sensible world, which only imitates the world of forms. This is due to the fact that physical things exist only to the extent that they participate in the forms that characterize them, while the forms themselves have an independent manner of existence. In this sense, the sensible world is a mere replication of the perfect exemplars found in the world of forms: it never lives up to the original. In the allegory of the cave, Plato compares the physical things we are familiar with to mere shadows of the real things. But not knowing the difference, the prisoners in the cave mistake the shadows for the real things.

Wittgenstein

Two definitions that were both put forward in the 1920s, however, suggest the range of available opinion. "The world is everything that is the case", wrote Ludwig Wittgenstein in his influential Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in 1921.

Martin Heidegger, meanwhile, argued that "the surrounding world is different for each of us, and notwithstanding that we move about in a common world".

"World" is one of the key terms in Eugen Fink's philosophy. He thinks that there is a misguided tendency in western philosophy to understand the world as one enormously big thing containing all the small everyday things we are familiar with. He sees this view as a form of forgetfulness of the world and tries to oppose it by what he calls the "cosmological difference": the difference between the world and the inner-worldly things it contains. On his view, the world is the totality of the inner-worldly things that transcends them. It is itself groundless but it provides a ground for things. It therefore cannot be identified with a mere container. Instead, the world gives appearance to inner-worldly things, it provides them with a place, a beginning and an end. One difficulty in investigating the world is that we never encounter it since it is not just one more thing that appears to us. This is why Fink uses the notion of play or playing to elucidate the nature of the world. He sees play as a symbol of the world that is both part of it and that represents it. Play usually comes with a form of imaginary play-world involving various things relevant to the play. But just like the play is more than the imaginary realities appearing in it so the world is more than the actual things appearing in it.

The concept of worlds plays a central role in Nelson Goodman's late philosophy. He argues that we need to posit different worlds in order to account for the fact that there are different incompatible truths found in reality. Two truths are incompatible if they ascribe incompatible properties to the same thing. This happens, for example, when we assert both that the earth moves and that the earth is at rest. These incompatible truths correspond to two different ways of describing the world: heliocentrism and geocentrism. Goodman terms such descriptions "world versions". He holds a correspondence theory of truth: a world version is true if it corresponds to a world. Incompatible true world versions correspond to different worlds. It is common for theories of modality to posit the existence of a plurality of possible worlds. But Goodman's theory is different since it posits a plurality not of possible but of actual worlds. Such a position is in danger of involving a contradiction: there cannot be a plurality of actual worlds if worlds are defined as maximally inclusive wholes. This danger may be avoided by interpreting Goodman's world-concept not as maximally inclusive wholes in the absolute sense but in relation to its corresponding world-version: a world contains all and only the entities that its world-version describes.

Yggdrasil, an attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld.

Mythological cosmologies depict the world as centered on an and delimited by a boundary such as a world ocean, a world serpent or similar.

Hinduism constitutes a family of religious-philosophical views. These views present perspectives on the nature and role of the world. Samkhya philosophy, for example, is a metaphysical dualism that understands reality as comprising 2 parts: purusha and prakriti. The term "purusha" stands for the individual conscious self that each of "us" possesses. Prakriti, on the other hand, is the 1 world inhabited by all these selves. Samkhya understands this world as a world of matter governed by the law of cause and effect. The term "matter" is understood in a sense in this tradition including physical and mental aspects. This is reflected in the doctrine of tattvas, according to which prakriti is made up of 23 principles or elements of reality. These principles include physical elements, like water or earth, and mental aspects, like intelligence or sense-impressions. The relation between purusha and prakriti is conceived as 1 of observation: purusha is the conscious self aware of the world of prakriti and does not causally interact with it.

A conception of the world is present in Advaita Vedanta, the monist school among the Vedanta schools. Unlike the realist position defended in Samkhya philosophy, Advaita Vedanta sees the world of multiplicity as an illusion, referred to as Maya. This illusion includes impression of existing as separate experiencing selfs called Jivas. Instead, Advaita Vedanta teaches that on the most fundamental level of reality, referred to as Brahman, there exists no plurality or difference. All there is is 1 all-encompassing self: Atman. Ignorance is seen as the source of this illusion, which results in bondage to the world of mere appearances. Liberation is possible in the course of overcoming this illusion by acquiring the knowledge of Brahman, according to Advaita Vedanta.

Christianity

Contemptus mundi is the name given to the belief that the world, in all its vanity, is nothing more than a futile attempt to hide from God by stifling our desire for the good and the holy. This view has been criticised as a "pastoral of fear" by historian Jean Delumeau.

Orbis Catholicus is a Latin phrase meaning 'Catholic world', per the expression Urbi et Orbi, and refers to that area of Christendom under papal supremacy.

In Islam, the term "dunya" is used for the world. Its meaning is derived from the root word "dana", a term for "near". It is associated with the temporal, sensory world and earthly concerns, i.e. with this world in contrast to the spiritual world. Religious teachings warn of a tendency to seek happiness in this world and advise a more ascetic lifestyle concerned with the afterlife. Other strands in Islam recommend a balanced approach.

In Mandaean cosmology, the world or earthly realm is known as Tibil. It is separated from the World of Light ( alma d-nhūra) above and the World of Darkness ( alma d-hšuka) below by aether ( ayar).

Related terms and problems

Worldviews

Scientific worldview.

A worldview is a comprehensive representation of the world and our place in it. As a representation, it is a subjective perspective of the world and thereby different from the world it represents. All higher animals need to represent their environment in some way in order to navigate it. But it has been argued that only humans possess a representation encompassing enough to merit the term "worldview". Philosophers of worldviews commonly hold that the understanding of any object depends on a worldview constituting the background on which this understanding can take place. This may affect not just our intellectual understanding of the object in question but the experience of it in general. It is therefore impossible to assess one's worldview from a neutral perspective since this assessment already presupposes the worldview as its background. Some hold that each worldview is based on a single hypothesis that promises to solve all the problems of our existence we may encounter. On this interpretation, the term is closely associated to the worldviews given by different religions. Worldviews offer orientation not just in theoretical matters but also in practical matters. For this reason, they usually include answers to the question of the meaning of life and other evaluative components about what matters and how we should act. A worldview can be unique to one individual but worldviews are usually shared by many people within a certain culture or religion.

Paradox of many worlds

The idea that there exist many different worlds is found in various fields. For example, theories of modality talk about a plurality of possible worlds and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics carries this reference even in its name. Talk of different worlds is also common in everyday language, for example, with reference to the world of music, the world of business, the world of football, the world of experience or the Asian world. But at the same time, worlds are usually defined as all-inclusive totalities. This seems to contradict the very idea of a plurality of worlds since if a world is total and all-inclusive then it cannot have anything outside itself. Understood this way, a world can neither have other worlds besides itself or be part of something bigger. One way to resolve this paradox while holding onto the notion of a plurality of worlds is to restrict the sense in which worlds are totalities. On this view, worlds are not totalities in an absolute sense. This might be even understood in the sense that, strictly speaking, there are no worlds at all. Another approach understands worlds in a schematic sense: as context-dependent expressions that stand for the current domain of discourse. So in the expression "Around the World in Eighty Days", the term "world" refers to the earth while in the colonial expression "the New World" it refers to the landmass of North and South America.

Cosmogony is the field that studies the origin or creation of the world. This includes both scientific cosmogony and creation myths found in various religions. The dominant theory in scientific cosmogony is the Big Bang theory, according to which both space, time and matter have their origin in one initial singularity occurring about 13.8 billion years ago. This singularity was followed by an expansion that allowed the universe to sufficiently cool down for the formation of subatomic particles and later atoms. These initial elements formed giant clouds, which would then coalesce into stars and galaxies. Non-scientific creation myths are found in many cultures and are often enacted in rituals expressing their symbolic meaning. They can be categorized concerning their contents. Types often found include creation from nothing, from chaos or from a cosmic egg.

Eschatology

Eschatology refers to the science or doctrine of the last things or of the end of the world. It is traditionally associated with religion, specifically with the Abrahamic religions. In this form, it may include teachings both of the end of each individual human life and of the end of the world as a whole. But it has been applied to other fields as well, for example, in the form of physical eschatology, which includes scientifically based speculations about the far future of the universe. According to some models, there will be a Big Crunch in which the whole universe collapses back into a singularity, possibly resulting in a second Big Bang afterward. But current astronomical evidence seems to suggest that our universe will continue to expand indefinitely.

World history

World history studies the world from a historical perspective. Unlike other approaches to history, it employs a global viewpoint. It deals less with individual nations and civilizations, which it usually approaches at a high level of abstraction. Instead, it concentrates on wider regions and zones of interaction, often interested in how people, goods and ideas move from one region to another. It includes comparisons of different societies and civilizations as well as considering wide-ranging developments with a long-term global impact like the process of industrialization. Contemporary world history is dominated by three main research paradigms determining the periodization into different epochs. One is based on productive relations between humans and nature. The two most important changes in history in this respect were the introduction of agriculture and husbandry concerning the production of food, which started around 10,000 to 8,000 BCE and is sometimes termed the Neolithic Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution, which started around 1760 CE and involved the transition from manual to industrial manufacturing. Another paradigm, focusing on culture and religion instead, is based on Karl Jaspers' theories about the Axial Age, a time in which various new forms of religious and philosophical thoughts appeared in several separate parts of the world around the time between 800 and 200 BCE. A third periodization is based on the relations between civilizations and societies. According to this paradigm, history can be divided into three periods in relation to the dominant region in the world: Middle Eastern dominance before 500 BCE, Eurasian cultural balance until 1500 CE and Western dominance since 1500 CE. Big history employs an even wider framework than world history by putting human history into the context of the history of the universe as a whole. It starts with the Big Bang and traces the formation of galaxies, the Solar System, the Earth, its geological eras, the evolution of life and humans until the present day.

World politics

World politics, also referred to as global politics or international relations, is the discipline of political science studying issues of interest to the world that transcend nations and continents. It aims to explain complex patterns found in the social world that are often related to the pursuit of power, order and justice, usually in the context of globalization. It focuses not just on the relations between nation-states but also considers other transnational actors, like multinational corporations, terrorist groups, or non-governmental organizations. For example, it tries to explain events like 9/11, the 2003 war in Iraq or the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Various theories have been proposed in order to deal with the complexity involved in formulating such explanations. These theories are sometimes divided into realism, liberalism and constructivism. Realists see nation-states as the main actors in world politics. They constitute an anarchical international system without any overarching power to control their behavior. They are seen as sovereign agents that, determined by human nature, act according to their national self-interest. Military force may play an important role in the ensuing struggle for power between states, but diplomacy and cooperation are also key mechanisms for nations to achieve their goals. Liberalists acknowledge the importance of states but they also emphasize the role of transnational actors, like the United Nations or the World Trade Organization. They see humans as perfectible and stress the role of democracy in this process. The emergent order in world politics, on this perspective, is more complex than a mere balance of power since more different agents and interests are involved in its production. Constructivism ascribes more importance to the agency of individual humans than realism and liberalism. It understands the social world as a construction of the people living in it. This leads to an emphasis on the possibility of change. If the international system is an anarchy of nation-states, as the realists hold, then this is only so because we made it this way and may change since this is not prefigured by human nature, according to the constructivists.

References

External links

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The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a "plurality of worlds".

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( Wuhan ( simplified Chinese: 武汉; traditional Chinese: 武漢, [ù.xân] listen )) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China.[16] It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China,[17] with a population of over 11 million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city and one of the nine National Central Cities of China.[18]

The name "Wuhan" came from the city's historical origin from the conglomeration of Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang, which are collectively known as the "Three Towns of Wuhan" (武汉三镇). It lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain, at the confluence of the Yangtze river and its largest tributary, the Han River and is known as "Nine Provinces' Thoroughfare" ().

Wuhan is considered by some to be one of the potential sites of the pivotal Battle of the Red Cliffs, which stopped warlord Cao Cao's incursion into southern China at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty. Other historical events taking place in Wuhan include the Wuchang Uprising of 1911, which led to the downfall of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. Wuhan was briefly the capital of China in 1927 under the left wing of the Kuomintang (KMT) government led by Wang Jingwei. The city later served as the wartime capital of China for ten months in 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Wuhan is considered the political, economic, financial, commercial, cultural and educational center of Central China. It is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways passing through the city and connecting to other major cities. Because of its key role in domestic transportation, Wuhan is sometimes referred to as "the Chicago of China" by foreign sources. The "Golden Waterway" of the Yangtze River and the Han River traverse the urban area and divide Wuhan into the three districts of Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang. The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge crosses the Yangtze in the city. The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity, is located nearby. Historically, Wuhan has suffered risks of flooding, prompting the government to alleviate the situation by introducing ecologically friendly absorption mechanisms.

While Wuhan has been a traditional manufacturing hub for decades, it is also one of the areas promoting modern industrial changes in China. Wuhan consists of three national development zones, four scientific and technological development parks, over 350 research institutes, 1,656 high tech enterprises, numerous enterprise incubators and investments from 230 Fortune Global 500 firms. It produced GDP of US$224 billion in 2018. The Dongfeng Motor Corporation, an automobile manufacturer, is headquartered in Wuhan. The city is home to multiple notable institutes of higher education, including Wuhan University and the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Wuhan is also one of the major cities in the world by scientific research outputs and it ranks 13th globally and 4th in China (after Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing). In 2017, Wuhan was designated as a Creative City by UNESCO, in the field of design. Wuhan is classified as a Beta- (global second tier) city together with seven other cities in China, including Changsha, Dalian, Jinan, Shenyang, Xiamen, Xi'an and Zhengzhou by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.

In December 2019, SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, was first discovered in Wuhan. There is no conclusive evidence on the virus's origin so far, and further studies are being carried out around the world on a possible origin for the virus.

The name "Wuhan" comes from the two major cities on the banks of the Yangtze River that make up the Wuhan metropolis: "Wu" refers to the city of Wuchang ( Chinese: 武昌), which lies on the southern bank of the Yangtze, while "Han" refers to the city of Hankou ( Chinese: 汉口), which lies on the northern bank of the Yangtze.

In 1926, the Northern Expedition reached the Wuhan area and it was decided to merge Hankou, Wuchang and Hanyang into one city in order to make a new capital for Nationalist China. On January 1, 1927, the resulting city was proclaimed as '' (the traditional Chinese characters for 'Wuhan'), which was later simplified as '武汉' (also 'Wuhan').

The Wuhan area has been settled for 3,500 years. Panlongcheng, an archaeological site primarily associated with the Erligang culture (c. 1510 - c. 1460 BC) (being sparsely populated during the earlier Erlitou period), is located in modern-day Huangpi District of Wuhan.

During the Western Zhou the State of E, which gives its name to the single character abbreviation for Hubei province, controlled the present-day Wuchang area south of the Yangtze River. After the conquest of the E state in 863 BC, the present-day Wuhan area was controlled by the State of Chu for the rest of the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou periods. After the State of Huang was conquered by State of Chu in the summer of 648 BC, the people of Huang were moved into the area in and around present-day Wuhan. Local geographical terms including the name of Wuhan's Huangpi District were named after the State of Huang. Chu was in turn conquered by Qin in 223 BC.

Imperial China

During the Han dynasty, Hanyang became a fairly busy port. The Battle of Xiakou in AD 203 and Battle of Jiangxia five years later were fought in the region over control of Jiangxia Commandery, territories of which included much of present-day eastern Hubei. In the winter of 208/9, one of the most famous battles in Chinese history and a central event in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms-the Battle of Red Cliffs-took place near the Yangtze River, with the cliffs near Wuhan identified as one of the potential locations. Around that time, walls were built to protect Hanyang (AD 206) and Wuchang (AD 223). The latter event marks the foundation of Wuhan. In AD 223, the Yellow Crane Tower, one of the Four Great Towers of China, was constructed on the Wuchang side of the Yangtze River by order of Sun Quan, leader of the Eastern Wu. The tower become a sacred site of Taoism.

Due to tensions between the Eastern Wu and Cao Wei kingdoms, in the autumn of 228, Cao Rui, grandson of Cao Cao and the second emperor of the state of Cao Wei, ordered the general Man Chong to lead troops to Xiakou (夏口; in present-day Wuhan). In 279, Wang Jun and his army conquered strategic locations in Wu territory such as Xiling (in present-day Yichang, Hubei), Xiakou (夏口; present-day Hankou) and Wuchang (武昌; present-day Ezhou, Hubei).

During the Northern and Southern dynasties period, the Wuhan area was part of the successive Southern dynasty states Liu Song (420-479), Southern Qi (479-502), Liang, and Western Liang.

In fall 550, Hou Jing sent Ren Yue to attack both Xiao Daxin and Xiao Fan's son Xiao Si (蕭嗣). Ren killed Xiao Si in battle, and Xiao Daxin, unable to resist, surrendered, allowing Hou to take his domain under control. Meanwhile, Xiao Guan, who had by now settled at Jiangxia (江夏, in modern Wuhan), was planning to attack Hou, but this drew Xiao Yi's ire-believing that Xiao Guan was intending to contend for the throne-and he sent Wang to attack Xiao Guan. In summer 567, Chen Xu commissioned Wu Mingche as the governor of Xiang Province and had him command a major part of the troops against Hua, along with Chunyu Liang (淳于量). The opposing sides met at Zhuankou (沌口, in modern Wuhan).

In spring 877, Wang Xianzhi captured E Prefecture (鄂州, in modern Wuhan). He then returned north, joining forces with Huang again, and they surrounded Song Wei at Song Prefecture (宋州, in modern Shangqiu, Henan). In winter 877, Huang Chao pillaged Qi and Huang (黃州, in modern Wuhan) Prefectures.

Before Kublai Khan arrived in 1259, word reached him that Möngke had died. Kublai decided to keep the death of his brother secret and continued the attack on the Wuhan area, near the Yangtze. The present-day Wuying Pagoda was constructed at the end of the Song Dynasty between attacks by the Mongolian forces. Under the Mongol rulers ( Yuan dynasty) (after 1301), the Wuchang prefecture, headquartered in the town, became the capital of Hubei province. Hankou, from the Ming to late Qing, was under the administration of the local government in Hanyang, although it was already one of the four major national markets () of the Ming dynasty.

Hanyang's Guiyuan Temple was completed in the 15th year of Shunzhi (1658).

By the dawn of the 18th century, Hankou had become one of China's top four trading centers. In the late 19th century, railroads were extended on a north-south axis through the city, making Wuhan an important transshipment point between rail and river traffic. Also during this period foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions, with the riverfront of Hankou being divided up into foreign-controlled merchant districts. These districts contained trading firm offices, warehouses, and docking facilities. The French had a concession in Hankou. During the Taiping Rebellion, the Wuhan area was controlled for many years by rebel forces and the Yellow Crane Tower, Xingfu Temple, Zhuodaoquan Temple and other buildings were repurposed or damaged. During the Second Opium War (known in the West as the Arrow War, 1856-1860), the government of the Qing dynasty was defeated by the western powers and signed the Treaties of Tianjin and the Convention of Peking, which stipulated eleven cities or regions (including Hankou) as trading ports. In December 1858, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, High Commissioner to China, led four warships up the Yangtze River in Wuhan to collect the information needed for opening the trading port in Wuhan.

In the spring of 1861, Counselor Harry Smith Parkes and Admiral Herbert were sent to Wuhan to open a trading port. On the basis of the Convention of Peking, Parkes concluded the Hankou Lend-Lease Treaty with Guan Wen, the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei. It brought an area of 30.53 square kilometers (11.79 sq mi) along the Yangtze River (from latter-day Jianghan Road to Hezuo Road) to become a British Concession and permitted Britain to set up its consulate in the concession.

In 1889, Zhang Zhidong was transferred from Viceroy of Liangguang ( Guangdong and Guangxi provinces) to Viceroy of Huguang ( Hunan and Hubei provinces). He governed the province for 18 years, until 1907. During this period, he elucidated the theory of "Chinese learning as the basis, Western learning for application," known as the ti-yong ideal. He set up many heavy industries, founded Hanyang Steel Plant, Daye Iron Mine, Pingxiang Coal Mine and Hubei Arsenal and set up local textile industries, boosting the flourishing modern industry in Wuhan. Meanwhile, he initiated education reform, opened dozens of modern educational organizations successively, such as Lianghu (Hunan and Hubei) Academy of Classical Learning, Civil General Institute, Military General Institute, Foreign Languages Institute and Lianghu (Hunan and Hubei) General Normal School, and selected a great many students for study overseas, which well promoted the development of China's modern education. Furthermore, he trained a modern military and organized a modern army including a zhen and a xie (both zhen and xie are military units in the Qing dynasty) in Hubei.

Originally known as the Hubei Arsenal, the Hanyang Arsenal was founded in 1891 by Qing official Zhang Zhidong, who diverted funds from the Nanyang Fleet in Guangdong to build the arsenal. It cost about 250,000 pounds sterling and was built in 4 years. On April 23, 1894, construction was completed and the arsenal, occupying some 40 acres (160,000 m ²), could start production of small-caliber cannons. It built magazine-fed rifles, Gruson quick fire guns, and cartridges.

Wuchang Uprising

By 1900, according to Collier's magazine, Hankou, the Yangtze River boom town, was "the St. Louis and Chicago of China." On October 10, 1911, Sun Yat-sen's followers launched the Wuchang Uprising, which led to the collapse of the Qing dynasty, as well as the establishment of the Republic of China.

The Wuchang Uprising of October 1911, which overthrew the Qing dynasty, originated in Wuhan. Before the uprising, anti-Qing secret societies were active in Wuhan. In September 1911, the outbreak of the protests in Sichuan forced the Qing authorities to send part of the New Army garrisoned in Wuhan to suppress the rebellion. On September 14 the Literary Society (文學社) and the Progressive Association (共進會), two local revolutionary organizations in Hubei, set up joint headquarters in Wuchang and planned for an uprising. On the morning of October 9, a bomb at the office of the political arrangement exploded prematurely and alerted local authorities. The proclamation for the uprising, beadroll and the revolutionaries' official seal fell into the hands of Rui Cheng, the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei, who demolished the uprising headquarters the same day and set out to arrest the revolutionaries listed in the beadroll. This forced the revolutionaries to launch the uprising earlier than planned.

On the night of October 10, the revolutionaries fired shots to signal the uprising at the engineering barracks of Hubei New Army. They then led the New Army of all barracks to join the revolution. Under the guidance of Wu Zhaolin, Cai Jimin and others, this revolutionary army seized the official residence of the governor and government offices. Rui Cheng fled in panic into the Chuyu ship. Zhang Biao, the commander of the Qing army, also fled the city. On the morning of the 11th, the revolutionary army took the whole city of Wuchang, but leaders such as Jiang Yiwu and Sun Wu disappeared. Thus the leaderless revolutionary army recommended Li Yuanhong, the assistant governor of the Qing army, as the commander-in-chief. Li founded the Hubei Military Government, proclaimed the abolition of the Qing rule in Hubei, the founding of the Republic of China and published an open telegram calling for other provinces to join the revolution.

As the revolution spread to other parts of the country, the Qing government concentrated loyalist military forces to suppress the uprising in Wuhan. From October 17 to December 1, the revolutionary army and local volunteers defended the city in the Battle of Yangxia against better armed and more numerous Qing forces commanded by Yuan Shikai. Huang Xing would arrive in Wuhan in early November to take command of the revolutionary army. After fierce fighting and heavy casualties, Qing forces seized Hankou and Hanyang. But Yuan agreed to halt the advance on Wuchang and participated in peace talks, which would eventually lead to the return of Sun Yat-sen from exile, founding of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912. Through the Wuchang Uprising, Wuhan is known as the birthplace of the Xinhai Revolution, named after the Xinhai year on the Chinese calendar. The city has several museums and memorials to the revolution and the thousands of martyrs who died defending the revolution.

Republic of China

With the northern extension of the Northern Expedition, the center of the Great Revolution shifted from the Pearl River basin to the Yangtze River basin. On November 26, the Kuomintang Central Political Committee decided to move the capital from Guangzhou to Wuhan. In mid-December, most of the KMT central executive commissioners and national government commissioners arrived in Wuhan, set up the temporary joint conference of central executive commissioners and National Government commissioners, performed the top functions of central party headquarters and National Government, declared they would work in Wuhan on January 1, 1927, and decided to combine the towns of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang into Wuhan City, called "Capital District". The new national government, later known as " Wuhan nationalist government", was based in the Nanyang Building in Hankou, while the central party headquarters and other organizations chose their locations in Hankou or Wuchang.

In March 1927, Mao Zedong appeared at the Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in Wuhan, which sought to strip General Chiang of his power by appointing Wang Jingwei leader. The first phase of the Northern Expedition was interrupted by the political split in the Kuomintang following the formation of the Nanjing faction in April 1927 against the existing faction in Wuhan. Members of the Chinese Communist Party, who had survived the April 12 massacre, met at Wuhan and reelected Chen Duxiu (Ch'en Tu-hsiu) as the Party's Secretary General. The split was partially motivated by the purge of the Communists within the party, which marked the end of the First United Front, and Chiang Kai-shek briefly stepped down as the commander of the National Revolutionary Army.

In June 1927, Stalin sent a telegram to the Communists in Wuhan, calling for the mobilization of an army of workers and peasants. This alarmed Wang Jingwei, who decided to break with the Communists and come to terms with Chiang Kai-shek. The Wuhan coup was a political shift made on July 15, 1927, by Wang Jingwei towards Chiang Kai-shek, and his Shanghai-based rival in the Kuomintang. The Wuhan Nationalist Government was established in Wuhan on February 21, 1927, and ended by August 19, 1927. After the end of the Northern Expedition, Hankou was elevated to a centrally-controlled municipality.

In the 1931 China floods, one of the deadliest flood disasters in world history, Wuhan was a refuge for flood victims from outlying areas, who had been arriving since the late spring. But when the city itself was inundated in the early summer, and after a catastrophic dike failure just before 6:00 AM on July 27, an estimated 782,189 urban citizens and rural refugees were left homeless. The flood covered an area of 32 square miles and the city was flooded under many feet of water for close to three months. Large numbers gathered on flood islands throughout the city, with 30,000 sheltering on a railway embankment in central Hankou. With little food and a complete breakdown in sanitation, thousands soon began to succumb to diseases. Jin Shilong, Senior Engineer at the Hubei Flood Prevention Agency, described the flooding:

There was no warning, only a sudden great wall of water. Most of Wuhan's buildings in those days were only one story high, and for many people there was no escape - they died by the tens of thousands. ... I was just coming off duty at the company's main office, a fairly new three-story building near the center of town ... When I heard the terrible noise and saw the wall of water coming, I raced to the top story of the building. ... I was in one of the tallest and strongest buildings left standing. At that time no one knew whether the water would subside or rise even higher.

The high-water mark was reached on August 19 at Hankou, with the water level exceeding 16 m (53 ft) above normal. In 1936, when natural disaster struck Central China with widespread flooding affecting Hebei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Wuhan and Chongqing caused by the Yangtze and Huai Rivers bursting their banks, Ong Seok Kim, as Chairman of the Sitiawan Fundraising and Disaster Relief Committee, raised money and materials in support of the victims.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War and following the fall of Nanking in December 1937, Wuhan had become the provisional capital of China's Kuomintang government, and became another focal point of pitched air battles beginning in early 1938 between modern monoplane bomber and fighter aircraft of the Imperial Japanese forces and the Chinese Air Force, which included support from the Soviet Volunteer Group in both planes and personnel, as U.S. support in war materials waned. As the battle raged on through 1938, Wuhan and the surrounding region had become the site of the Battle of Wuhan. After being taken by the Japanese in late 1938, Wuhan became a major Japanese logistics center for operations in southern China.

In early October 1938, Japanese troops moved east and north in the outskirts of Wuhan. As a result, numerous companies and enterprises and large numbers of people had to withdraw from Wuhan to the west of Hubei and Sichuan. The KMT navy undertook the responsibility of defending the Yangtze River on patrol and covering the withdrawal. On October 24, while overseeing the waters of the Yangtze River near the town of Jinkou (Jiangxia District in Wuhan) in Wuchang, the KMT gunboat came up against six Japanese aircraft. Though two were eventually shot down, the Zhongshan sank with 25 casualties. Raised from the bottom of the Yangtze River in 1997, and restored at a local shipyard, the Zhongshan has been moved to a purpose-built museum in Wuhan's suburban Jiangxia District, which opened on September 26, 2011.

As a key center on the Yangtze, Wuhan was an important base for Japanese operations in China. On December 18, 1944, Wuhan was bombed by 77 American bombers that set off a firestorm that destroyed much of the city. For the next three days, Wuhan was bombed by the Americans, destroying all of the docks and warehouses of Wuhan, as well as the Japanese air bases in the city. The air raids killed thousands of Chinese civilians which American bombers did not know. "According to casualty statistics compiled by Hankou city in 1946, more than 20,000 were killed or injured in the December bombings of 1944."

Wuhan returned to Chinese control in September 1945. Administratively, Wuchang and Hanyang were initially combined into a new City of Wuchang, but in October 1946 were separated into the City of Wuchang (including Wuchang only) and the County of Hanyang. Hankou became a centrally controlled municipality in August 1947. Militarily, the Wuhan Forward Headquarters was established in Wuhan, headed by Bai Chongxi.

During the later stages of the Chinese Civil War, Bai sought to broker peace, proposing that the Communist Party could rule northern China while the Nationalist government retained southern China. This was rejected, and on May 15, 1949 Bai and the Wuhan garrison retreated from the city. People's Liberation Army troops entered Wuhan on the afternoon of Monday, May 16, 1949.

People's Republic of China

The Changjiang Water Resources Commission was reestablished in February 1950 with its headquarters in Wuhan. From June to September 1954, the Yangtze River Floods were a series of catastrophic floodings that occurred mostly in Hubei Province. Due to an unusually high volume of precipitation as well as an extraordinarily long rainy season in the middle stretch of the Yangtze River late in the spring of 1954, the river started to rise above its usual level in around late June. In 1969, a large stone monument was erected in the riverside park in Hankou honoring the heroic deeds in fighting the 1954 Yangtze River floods.

Before construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, Hunslet Engine Company built two extra heavy 0-8-0 locomotives for loading the train ferries for crossing the Yangtze River in Wuhan.

The project of building the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, also known as the First Yangtze River Bridge, was regarded as one of the key projects during the first five-year plan. On October 25, 1955, construction began on the bridge proper. The same day in 1957, the whole project was completed and an opening-to-traffic ceremony was held on October 15. The First Yangtze River Bridge united the Beijing-Hankou Railway with the Guangdong-Hankou Railway into the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, making Wuhan a 'thoroughfare to nine provinces' () in name and in fact.

After Chengdu Conference, Mao went to Chongqing and Wuhan in April to inspect the countryside and factories. In Wuhan, he called all the leaders of provinces and municipalities who had not attended Chengdu Conference to report their work. Tian Jiaying, the secretary of Mao, said that Wuhan Conference was a supplement to Chengdu Conference.

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, students in Wuhan blocked the Yangtze River Railway bridge and another 4,000 gathered at the railway station. About one thousand students staged a railroad 'sit-in'. Rail traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou and Wuhan-Dalian lines was interrupted. The students also urged employees of major state-owned enterprises to go on strike. The situation was so tense that residents reportedly began a bank run and resorted to panic-buying.

In the wake of the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999, protests broke out throughout China, including in Wuhan.

On June 22, 2000, a Wuhan Airlines flight from Enshi to Wuhan was forced to circle for 30 minutes due to thunderstorms. The aircraft eventually crashed on the banks of Han River in Hanyang District, all on-board perished (there were varying accounts of number of crews and passengers). In addition, the crash also killed 7 people on the ground.

Chinese protesters organized boycotts of the French-owned retail chain Carrefour in major Chinese cities including Kunming, Hefei and Wuhan, accusing the French nation of pro- secessionist conspiracy and anti-Chinese racism. The BBC reported that hundreds of people demonstrated in Beijing, Wuhan, Hefei, Kunming and Qingdao. On May 19, 2011, Fang Binxing, the Principal of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (also known as "Father of China's Great Fire Wall") was hit on the chest by a shoe thrown at him by a Huazhong University of Science and Technology student who calls herself "hanjunyi" (寒君依, or 小湖北) while Fang was giving a lecture at Wuhan University.

The city has been subject to devastating floods, which are now supposed to be controlled by the ambitious Three Gorges Dam, a project which was completed in 2008. The 2008 Chinese winter storms damaged water supply equipment in Wuhan: up to 100,000 people were out of running water when several water pipes burst, cutting the supply to local households. The 2010 Northern Hemisphere summer heat wave hit Wuhan on July 3. In the 2010 China floods, the Han River at Wuhan experienced its worst flooding in twenty years, as officials continued sandbagging efforts along the Han and Yangtze Rivers in the city and checked reservoirs. In the 2011 China floods, Wuhan was flooded, with parts of the city losing power. In the 2016 China floods, Wuhan saw 570 mm (22 in) of rainfall during the first week of July, surpassing the record that fell on the city in 1991. A red alert for heavy rainfall was issued on July 2, the same day that eight people died after a 15-meter (49 ft) section of a 2 m (6.6 ft) tall wall collapsed on top of them. The city's subway system, the Wuhan Metro was partially submerged as was the main railway station. At least 14 city residents were killed, one was missing, and more than 80,000 were relocated.

The 2019 Military World Games were hosted in Wuhan in October.

In December 2019, an epidemic of a new coronavirus disease began in Wuhan. The disease, which became known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), spread and developed into the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The virus contagion had been accelerating abroad during massive repatriations from tens of countries wanted to evacuate thousands of foreign nationals who had resided in Wuhan as expatriats. Wuhan and other Hubei cities were placed under lockdown for nearly three months to contain the disease. On April 8, 2020, the Wuhan lockdown officially came to an end after no new domestic cases were reported in Hubei province.

Wuhan is in east-central Hubei, at latitude 29° 58'-31° 22' N and longitude 113° 41'-115° 05' E. Wuhan sits at the confluence of the Han River flowing into the Yangtze River at the East of the Jianghan Plain along the Yangtze's middle reaches.

The metropolitan area comprises three parts- Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang -commonly called the "Three Towns of Wuhan" (hence the name "Wuhan", combining "Wu" from the first city and "Han" from the other two). The consolidation of these cities occurred in 1927 and Wuhan was thereby established. The three former cities face each other across the rivers and are linked by bridges, including one of the first modern bridges in China, known as the "First Bridge".

Wuchang lies south east of the Yangtze River that separates it from both Hankou and Hanyang.

Hankou sits north of the Yangtze River separating it from Wuchang. Hankou is north of the Han River separating it from Hanyang.

Hanyang lies west of the Yangtze separating it from Wuchang. Hanyang is south of the Han river separating it from Hankou.

It is simple in terrain-low and flat in the middle and hilly in the south, with the Yangtze and Han rivers winding through the city. The She River enters the Yangtze in Huangpi District. Wuhan occupies a land area of 8,494.41 square kilometers (3,279.71 sq mi), most of which is alluvial plain and decorated with hills and a great number of lakes and ponds. Water makes up one quarter of Wuhan's urban territory, which is the highest percentage among major cities in China. Wuhan has nearly 200 lakes, including the East Lake of 33 km2, and Tangxun Lake, which are the largest lakes entirely within a city in China.

Other well-known lakes include South Lake and Sand Lake. Liangzi Lake, the largest lake by surface area in Hubei province, is located in the southeast of Jiangxia District. At 709 m (2,326 ft) above sea level, the highest point in Wuhan is the main peak of Yunwu Mountain (云雾山) in northwestern Huangpi District. There are also several mountains within the city limits of Wuhan including Mount Luojia (珞珈山) in Wuchang District as well as Mount Hong (洪山) and Mount Yujia (喻家山/瑜珈山) in Hongshan District.

Wuhan's climate is humid subtropical ( Köppen Cfa) with abundant rainfall in summer and four distinctive seasons. Wuhan is known for its humid summers, when dewpoints can often reach 26 °C (79 °F) or more. Historically, along with Chongqing and Nanjing, Wuhan is referred to as one of the " Three Furnacelike Cities" along the Yangtze River for their hot summers. However, the climate data of recent years suggests that Wuhan is no longer among the top tier of "The hottest cities in summer" list, the New Four Furnacelike Cities are Chongqing, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, and Nanchang. Spring and autumn are generally mild, while winter is cool with quite low rainfall and occasional snow. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from 4.0 °C (39.2 °F) in January to 29.1 °C (84.4 °F) in July. Annual precipitation totals just under 1,320 mm (52 in), the majority of which falls from April to July; the annual mean temperature is 17.13 °C (62.8 °F), the frost-free period lasts 211 to 272 days. With monthly possible sunshine percentage ranging from 31 percent in March to 59 percent in August, the city proper receives 1,865 hours of bright sunshine annually. Extreme low and high temperatures recorded are −18.1 °C (−1 °F) on January 31, 1977 and 39.7 °C (103 °F) on July 27, 2017 (unofficial record of 41.3 °C (106 °F) in 1934).

Government and politics

Wuhan is a sub-provincial city. Municipal government is regulated by the local Communist Party of China (CPC), led by the Wuhan CPC Secretary ( Chinese: 武汉市委书记), Wang Zhonglin (王忠林). The local CPC issues administrative orders, collects taxes, manages the economy, and directs a standing committee of the Municipal People's Congress in making policy decisions and overseeing the local government.

Government officials include the mayor (市长), Zhou Xianwang (周先旺), and vice-mayors. Numerous bureaus focus on law, public security, and other affairs.

Administrative divisions

The sub-provincial city of Wuhan currently comprises 13 districts. As of the Sixth Census of China in 2010, the 13 districts comprised 160 township-level divisions including 156 subdistricts, 3 towns, 1 townships.

Diplomatic missions

There are four countries that have consulates in Wuhan:

The current U.S. Consul General, the Honorable Mr. Jamie Fouss, was posted to Wuhan in August 2017. The office of the U.S. Consulate General, Central China (located in Wuhan) celebrated its official opening on November 20, 2008 and is the first new American consulate in China in over 20 years.

In 2015, Japan and Russia announced their intentions to establish consular offices in Wuhan.

Up until the 21st century, Wuhan was largely an agricultural region. Since 2004 it has been a focal point of the Rise of Central China Plan, which aims to build less-developed inland economies into hubs of advanced manufacturing.

Since 1890, the steel industry has been the backbone of Wuhan's industry. In 2010, automobile industry exceeded GDP for Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation (WISCO) steel for the first time. There are 5 car manufacturers, including Dongfeng Honda, Citroen, Shanghai GM, DFM Passenger Vehicle and Dongfeng Renault. Dongfeng-Citroen Automobile Co., Ltd is headquartered in the city.

As of 2016, Wuhan has attracted foreign investment from over 80 countries, with 5,973 foreign-invested enterprises established in the city with a total capital injection of $22.45 billion USD. Among these, about 50 French companies including Renault and PSA Group have operations in the city, representing over one third of French investment in China, and the highest level of French investment in any Chinese city.

Wuhan is an important center for economy, trade, finance, transportation, information technology, and education in China. Its major industries include optic-electronic, automobile manufacturing, iron and steel manufacturing, new pharmaceutical sector, biology engineering, new materials industry and environmental protection. Environmental sustainability is highlighted in Wuhan's list of emerging industries, which include energy efficiency technology and renewable energy.

Industrial zones

Major industrial zones in Wuhan include in chronological order:

Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone

Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone is a national level industrial zone incorporated in 1993. Its current zone size is about 10-25 square km and it plans to expand to 25-50 square km. Industries encouraged in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone include Auto-mobile Production/Assembly, Biotechnology/Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals Production and Processing, Food/Beverage Processing, Heavy Industry, and Telecommunications Equipment.

Wuhan Export Processing Zone

Wuhan Export Processing Zone was established in 2000. It is located in Wuhan Economic and Technology Development Zone, planned to cover 2.7 square kilometers (1.0 square mile) of land. The first 0.7-square-kilometer (0.3-square-mile) area has already been created.

Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone is a national level high-tech development zone. Optical-electronics, telecommunications, and equipment manufacturing are the core industries of Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Development Zone (ELHTZ) while software outsourcing and electronics are also encouraged. ELHTZ is China's largest production center for optoelectronic products with key players like Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable, (the largest fiber-optical cable maker in China), and Fiberhome Telecommunications. Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone also represents the development center for China's laser industry with key players such as HG Tech and Chutian Laser being based in the zone.

Wuhan Optical Valley (Guanggu) Software Park

Wuhan Optical Valley (Guanggu) Software Park is located in Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone. Wuhan Optics Valley Software Park is jointly developed by East Lake High-Tech Development Zone and Dalian Software Park Co., Ltd. The planned area is 0.67 square kilometers (0.26 square miles) with total floor area of 6,000,000 square meters (65,000,000 square feet). The zone is 8.5 km (5.28 mi) away from the 316 National Highway and is 46.7 km (29.02 mi) away from the Wuhan Tianhe Airport.

Biolake is an industrial base established in 2008 in the Optics Valley of China. Located in East Lake New Technology Development Zone of Wuhan, Biolake covers 15 km ² (5.8 sq mi), and has six parks including Bio-innovation Park, Bio-pharma Park, Bio-agriculture Park, Bio-manufacturing Park, Medical Device Park and Medical Health Park, to accommodate both research activities and living.

Demographics

Wuhan is the most populous city in Central China and among the most populous in China. In the Sixth Census of China in 2010, Wuhan's built-up area made of 8 out of 10 urban districts ( all but Xinzhou and Hannan not yet conurbated) was home to 8,821,658 inhabitants. As of 2015, the city of Wuhan had an estimated population of 10,607,700 people.

The encompassing metropolitan area was estimated by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) to have, as of 2010, a population of 19 million. As of November 2019, urban development status considering both spatial and socioeconomic processes has been examined using Night Time Lighting data and land cover data as proxies; it showed Wuhan's high concentration of socioeconomic activities compared to its urban spatial development.

According to a survey published in 2017, 79.2% of the population of Wuhan are either irreligious or practice worship of gods and ancestors; among these 0.9% are Taoists. Among other religious doctrines, 14.7% of the population adheres to Buddhism, 2.9% to Protestantism, 0.3% to Catholicism and 1.6% to Islam, and 1.6% of the population adheres to unspecified other religions.

Transportation

China Railway Wuhan Group manages the Wuhan Railway Hub. Wuhan Railway Hub is considered one of the four key railway hubs of China. The city of Wuhan is served by three major railway stations: the Hankou Railway Station in Hankou, the Wuchang Railway Station in Wuchang, and the Wuhan Railway Station, located in a newly developed area east of the East Lake ( Hongshan District). As the stations are many miles apart, it is important for passengers to be aware of the particular station(s) used by a particular train.

The (original) Hankou Station was the terminus for the Jinghan Railway from Beijing, while the Wuchang Station was the terminus for the Yuehan Railway to Guangzhou. Since the construction of the First Yangtze Bridge and the linking of the two lines into the Jingguang Railway, both Hankou and Wuchang stations have been served by trains going to all directions, which contrasts with the situation in such cities as New York or Moscow, where different stations serve different directions.

With the opening of the Hefei-Wuhan high-speed railway on April 1, 2009, Wuhan became served by high-speed trains with Hefei, Nanjing, and Shanghai; several trains a day now connect the city with Shanghai, getting there in under six hours. As of early 2010, most of these express trains leave from the Hankou Railway Station.

As of 2011, the new Wuhan Railway Station is primarily used by the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed trains, while most regular trains to other destinations continue to use the Hankou and Wuchang stations.

Construction work is carried out on several lines of the new Wuhan Metropolitan Area Intercity Railway, which will eventually connect Wuhan's three main rail terminals with several stations throughout the city's outer areas and farther suburbs, as well as with the nearby cities of Xianning, Huangshi, Huanggang, and Xiaogan. The first line of the system, the one to Xianning, opened for passenger operations at the end of 2013. The line to Xiaogen opened on December 1, 2016 and it was extended with the opening of the Wuhan-Shiyan high-speed railway to Shiyan on November 29, 2019.

The main freight railway station and classification yard of the Wuhan metropolitan area is the extensive Wuhan North railway station, with 112 tracks and over 650 switches. It is located in Hengdian Subdistrict of Huangpi District, located 20 km (12 mi) north of the Wuhan Station and 23 km (14 mi) from Hankou Station.

Wuhan Metro

Wuhan Metro is a rapid transit system serving the city of Wuhan. Owned and operated by Wuhan Metro Group Co., Ltd., the network now includes 9 lines, 228 stations, and 339 km (211 mi) of route length. Line 1, the first line in the system, opened on July 28, 2004, which made Wuhan the seventh city in mainland China with rapid transit system, after Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changchun, and Dalian. Line 2 opened on December 28, 2012 and is the first underground metro line crossing the Yangtze River. Commuting across the Yangtze River and Han River has been the bottleneck of Wuhan traffic. However, the appearance of Wuhan Metro greatly relieved this problem. With 1.22 billion annual passengers in 2019, Wuhan Metro is the sixth-busiest rapid transit system in mainland China. There are a number of lines or sections under construction. The government of Wuhan City promised the citizens that at least two lines or sections open every year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire network was out of service from January 23 to March 27, 2020.

Trams were brought to the streets of Wuhan on July 28, 2017 with the first line (Auto-city T1 Line) opened that day. The trams under construction or planning in Wuhan are:

Auto-city trams, with Lines T1, T2, T6, and T8 in the Wuhan Economic Development Area, in the far western reaches on Hanyang. T1 Line is operational as of 2017.

Optics Valley trams, two lines (T1 and T2) south and east of Guanggu Circle (Guanggu Guangchang) in southeastern Wuchang. The system opened on January 18, 2018.

The Old Hankou Streetcar, a loop line around Hankou city.

Maritime transport

Wuhan is a major hub for maritime transport in central China. The Port of Wuhan provide services for the local population and shipping services.

Located on the banks of the Yangtze River, Wuhan has a long history of ferry services. Modern ferry services were established in 1900 by steam boat. In 1937, a train ferry was established to transport train cars from Hankou to Wuchang. There are numbered stops around Wuhan where people can get on and off the ferry and there is a tourist ferry in the night.

Currently, ferry services are provided by the Wuhan Ferry Company. In 2010, the company bought ten new ships to replace those that had been in service for 29 years.

Opened in April 1995 to replace the old Hankou Wangjiadun Airport and Nanhu Airport as the major airport of Wuhan, Wuhan Tianhe International Airport is one of the busiest airports in central China. It is located in Wuhan's suburban Huangpi District 26 kilometers (16 mi) north of Wuhan city proper. The extension of Line 2 of Wuhan Metro to Tianhe Airport opened on December 28, 2016. It has also been selected as China's fourth international hub airport after Beijing Capital International Airport, Shanghai-Pudong and Guangzhou Baiyun. A second terminal was completed in March 2008, having been started in February 2005 with an investment of CNY 3.372 billion. International flights to neighboring Asian countries have also been enhanced, including direct flights to Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan. Terminal 3 has been available for service since early 2017.

Hannan Municipal Airport is an municipal airport that serves Hannan District. It is the biggest airport in China that only handles general aviation, and the biggest municipal airport in Hubei Province. On December 1, 2017 construction began on Caidian Municipal Airport, which will serve Caidian District.

Highways and expressways

Numerous major highways and expressways pass through Wuhan, including:

Bicycle-sharing system

As of May 2011, the Wuhan and Hangzhou Public Bicycle bike-share systems in China were the largest in the world, with around 90,000 and 60,000 bicycles respectively. In 2012 the Wuhan and Hangzhou Public Bicycle programs in China are the largest in the world, with around 90,000 and 60,000 bicycles respectively. China has seen a rise in private "dockless" bike shares with fleets that dwarf systems in size outside China. Initially, a number of traditional (third-generation) docked public bike systems operated by local municipal governments opened across China, with the largest ones being in Wuhan and Hangzhou. The first was introduced in Beijing in 2007. However, third-generation bike sharing is not considered successful for the majority cities in China. Bike sharing in Beijing virtually stopped and it also has encountered difficulties in Shanghai and Wuhan.

Destinations

The Yellow Crane Tower (Huanghelou) is presumed to have been first built in approximately 220 AD. The tower has been destroyed and reconstructed numerous times, and was burned last according to some sources in 1884. The tower underwent complete reconstruction in 1981. The reconstruction utilized modern materials and added an elevator while maintaining the traditional design in the tower's outward appearance.

Wuchang has the largest and second largest lakes within a city in China, the East Lake and Tangxun Lake, as well as the South Lake. East Lake in Wuhan is six times the size of the West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The total area is more than 80 km² (31 sq mi) of which the lake is covering an area of 33 km² (13 sq mi). In the springtime, the shores of East Lake become a garden of flowers with the Mei blossoms as the king and the Cherry Blossom as the queen among the species at East Lake Cherry Blossom Park. Another famous flower is the lotus. The lake has a long history and especially the Chu Kingdom is well represented around East Lake. Moreover, in the Moshan Botanic Garden there are many types of plum blossoms, as well as lotus flowers.

The Hubei Provincial Museum: With over 200,000 valued artifacts, this is one of the leading museums in China. Especially the artefacts from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (Zeng Hou Yi), who lived in the 5th century BC, is a world unique treasure. The bell chime of Marquis Yi of Zeng is a bronze instrument performed 2430 years ago in ancient China (Warring States Period), and was discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng in Suizhou, Hubei in 1978. The whole chime weighs 5 tons, can perfectly play sound which was heard 2430 years ago, and was considered "The Eighth Wonder of the World".

The Wuhan Museum has a collection of more than 100,000 artifacts, including ceramic, bronze ware, paintings and calligraphy, jade, wood carving, enamel ware, seals and so on. As a modern comprehensive museum, Wuhan Museum has the function in cultural relic collection, academic reach, publicity and education, cultural exchange, and recreation and entertainment.

Happy Valley Wuhan is a theme park in Hongshan District. Opened on April 29, 2012, it is the fifth installation of the Happy Valley theme park chain.

The Rock and Bonsai Museum includes a mounted platybelodon skeleton, many unique stones, a quartz crystal the size of an automobile, and an outdoor garden with miniature trees in the ("Chinese Bonsai") style.

Jiqing Street (吉庆街) holds many roadside restaurants and street performers during the evening and is the site of a Live Show with stories of events on this street by contemporary writer Chi Li.

The Lute Platform in Hanyang was where the legendary musician Yu Boya is said to have played. This is the birthplace of the renowned legend of seeking a soul mate through "high mountains and flowing water". According to the story behind the Chinese word '' (; 'understanding music'), Yu Boya played for the last time over the grave of his friend Zhong Ziqi, then smashed his lute because the only person able to appreciate his music was dead.

Mao's Villa (毛澤東別墅), Mao Zedong's villa between 1960 and 1974; includes garden, living quarters, conference room, bomb shelter and swimming pool.

Some luxury riverboat tours begin here after a flight from Beijing or Shanghai, with several days of flatland cruising and then climbing through the Three Gorges with passage upstream past the Gezhouba and Three Gorges dams to the city of Chongqing. With the completion of the dam, a number of cruises now start from the upstream side and continue west, with tourists traveling by motorcoach from Wuhan.

Wuying Pagoda or the "Shadowless Pagoda" is the oldest standing architectural feature in Wuhan, dating from the closing days of the Southern Song Dynasty.

Chu River and Han Street, a shopping district located in Wuchang with many tourist attractions, including Han Show theater, Madame Tussauds wax museum, and Movie Culture Park, etc. This project was initiated as a water connecting channel between East Lake and Shahu Lake.

The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market is a live animal and seafood market in the Jianghan District. The market is located in the newer part of the city near shops and apartment blocks and is close to Hankou railway station. The market has been identified as a possible point of origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is located in the Wuchan District. It is, "the key laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for newly emerging and fulminating infectious disease pathogen and biosecurity."

Schools and universities

As of the end of 2013, in Wuhan there were 1,024 kindergartens with 224,300 children, 590 primary schools with 424,000 students, 369 general high schools with 314,000 students, 105 secondary vocational and technical schools with 98,600 students, and 80 colleges and universities with 966,400 undergraduates and junior college students and 107,400 postgraduate students. There are several international schools in Wuhan.

Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), located in the Optics Valley of China near East Lake, is a Project 985 and Class A Double First Class University. HUST manages Wuhan National Laboratories for Opto-electronics (WNLO), which is one of the five national laboratories in China. HUST is also one of four Chinese universities eligible to run the national laboratory and the national major science and technology infrastructure. Founded in 1953 as Huazhong Institute of Technology, it combined with three other universities (including former Tongji Medical University founded in 1907) in 2000 to form the new HUST, and has 42 schools and departments covering 12 comprehensive disciplines. HUST has 12 Fellows of Chinese Academy of Sciences and 17 Fellows of Chinese Academy of Engineering. U.S. News' 2021 U.S. News & World Report ranked HUST as 209th in the world, and 10th in China, while the QS World University Rankings ranked the university at 396th in the world. More than 2,000 international students from 120 countries pursue degrees at HUST.

Wuhan University is another Project 985 and Class A Double First Class University, which was ranked 246th by the 2021 QS World University Rankings and 247th by the 2021 U.S. News; established in 1893, the old Wuhan University absorbed three other schools (two of them being its spin-offs since the 1950s) in 2000 to become a university with 36 schools in 6 faculties. Since the 1950s it has received international students from more than 109 countries.

Scientific research

Wuhan contains three national development zones and four scientific and technological development parks, as well as numerous enterprise incubators, over 350 research institutes, 1470 high-tech enterprises, and over 400,000 experts and technicians.

Founded in 1958, the Wuhan Branch of Chinese Academy of Sciences is one of the twelve national branches of CAS. It is composed of 9 independent organizations, including the headquarters at Xiaohongshan, Wuchang. It has had a staff of 3,900, among which 8 are CAS fellows, and one is a Chinese Academy of Engineering fellow. As of 2013, the achievements gained by WHB had won 23 National Awards and 778 Provincial Awards. Wuhan Research Institute of Post and Telecommunications (now known as FiberHome Technologies Group) is the national center for optical communication research in China, and is where the first optical fiber in the country was produced.

Wuhan University of Technology is another major national university with three main campuses located in the Wuchang District. Founded in the year 2000, it was merged from three major universities, Wuhan University of Technology (established in 1948), Wuhan Transportation University (established in 1946) and Wuhan Automotive Polytechnic University (established in 1958). Wuhan University of Technology, together with China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Huazhong Agricultural University, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and Central China Normal University (or Huazhong Normal University), are the leading Chinese universities accredited by the Ministry of Education under the "State Project 211" for Chinese higher education institutions. Other major research universities have its seat in the city, including Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Hubei University, Hubei University of Technology, and South Central University for Nationalities.

The headquarters of Hubei Television is located in Wuchang District. Tortoise Mountain TV Tower is China's first self-developed TV tower, opened in 1986. The modern newspapers in Wuhan can be dated back to 1866, when Hankow Times, a newspaper in English, was founded. Before 1949, more than 50 newspapers and magazines were published by foreigners in Wuhan. Chao-wen Hsin-pao, founded by Ai Xiaomei in 1873, was the first Chinese newspaper to appear in Hankou (one of the cities that was merged into Wuhan). During the Northern Expedition era (1926-1928), journalism in Wuhan came to a climax; more than 120 newspapers and periodicals, including national newspapers such as Central Daily News and Republican Daily News, were founded or published during this time. Chutian Metropolis Daily and Wuhan Evening News are two major local commercial tabloid newspapers. Both of them have entered the list of 100 most widely circulated newspapers of the world.

The plum blossom is the city's emblem, chosen partly because of the long history of local plum cultivation and use, and partly to recognize the plum's current economic significance in terms of cultivation and research. Local wild plums were used medicinally during the Qin and Han dynasties. Cultivation of the fruit began during the Song dynasty. Some traditional new year customs revolve around the planting of plums.

Wuhan natives speak a variety of Southwestern Mandarin Chinese referred to as Wuhan dialect that differs slightly between the districts of Wuhan, including Wuchang dialect in Wuchang District, Hankou dialect in the Hankou districts, Hanyang dialect in Hanyang District, and Qingshan dialect in Qingshan District.

Hubei cuisine is one of China's ten major styles of cooking. With a history of more than 2,000 years, Hubei cuisine, originating in ancient Chu cuisine, has developed a number of distinctive dishes, such as steamed blunt-snout bream in clear soup, preserved ham with flowering Chinese cabbage, and others. On the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar, many in Wuhan eat dìcài zhǔ jīdàn (地菜煮鸡蛋), an egg dish which is supposed to prevent illness in the coming year.

"No need to be particular about the recipes; all foods have their own uses. Rice wine and tangyuan are excellent midnight snacks, while fat bream and flowering Chinese cabbages are great delicacies." This attitude expressed in Hankou Zhuzhici reflects indirectly the eating habits and a wide variety of distinctive snacks with a long history in Wuhan, such as Qingshuizong (a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves) in the Period of the Warring States, Chunbinbian in Northern and Southern dynasties, mung bean jelly in the Sui dynasty, youguo (a deep-fried twisted dough stick) in the Song and Yuan dynasties, rice wine and mianwo in the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as three-delicacy stuffed skin of bean milk, tangbao (steamed dumpling filled with minced meat and gravy) and hot braised noodles (reganmian) in modern times.

Guozao () is a popular way to say 'having breakfast' in Wuhan, and a part of the city's culture. As a hub for land transport in China, Wuhan has gathered and mixed together various habits and customs from neighboring cities and provinces in all directions, which gives rise to a concentration of diverse cuisines from different places. The most famous place to guozao (have breakfast) is Hubu Street (戶部巷), a 150-meter-long street in the neighborhood of Simenkou (司门口). Along its short length one can find nearly all the traditional foods of Wuhan, such as:

Hot and dry noodles, re-gan mian (), consists of long freshly boiled noodles mixed with sesame paste. It is considered to be the most typical local food for breakfast.

Duck's neck or Ya Bozi (鸭脖子) is a local version of this popular Chinese dish, made of duck necks and spices.

Bean skin or (豆皮) is a local dish with a filling of egg, rice, beef, mushrooms and beans cooked between two large round soybean skins and cut into pieces, structurally like a stuffed pizza without enclosing edges.

Soup dumpling or xiaolongtangbao (小笼汤包) is a kind of dumpling with thin skin made of flour, steamed with very juicy meat inside, hence the name: tang (soup) bao (bun) - every time one takes a bite from it the "soup" inside is liable to spill out.

A salty doughnut or (麪窩) is a kind of savory donut with a salty taste. It is much thinner than a common donut and is a typical Wuhan local food.

Han opera, which is the local opera of Wuhan area, was one of China's oldest and most popular operas. During the late Qing dynasty, Han opera, blended with Hui opera, gave birth to Peking opera, the most popular opera in modern China. Thus Han opera has been called the "mother of Peking opera."

Wuhan has a professional football team, Wuhan Zall F.C., that plays in the Chinese Super League. Xinhua Road Sport Center, the team's home stadium, with a capacity of 32,137, is located in the heart of the city next to Zhongshan Park. For the 2013 season, Wuhan Zall was promoted to the top-tier league of Chinese football, Chinese Super League, and relocated its home to Wuhan Sports Center Stadium, a modern stadium with 54,357 seats located in the suburbs of the city. However, the team did not play well in the ensuing season and was demoted back to China League One as the 2013 season ended. For financial and transportation reasons, the team moved back to Xinhua Road Sport Center in 2014.

The Wuhan Gators are a professional arena football team based in Wuhan. They are members of the China Arena Football League (CAFL).

The 13,000-seat Wuhan Gymnasium held the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship and was one of the venues for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The 7th Military World Games were hosted in Wuhan from Oct 18 to 27, 2019.

The city has been the venue for the women's tennis tournament, the Wuhan Open, one of the WTA's Premier 5 tournaments, since 2014.

Architecture

Wuhan has eleven bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze River. The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, also called the First Bridge, was built over the Yangtze in 1957, carrying a railroad directly across the river between hills known as Snake Hill and Turtle Hill. Before this bridge was built it could take up to an entire day to barge railcars across. Including its approaches, it is 5,511 feet (1,680 m) long, and it accommodates both a double-track railway on a lower deck and a four-lane roadway above. It was built with the assistance of advisers from the Soviet Union.

The Second Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge built of prestressed concrete, has a central span of 400 meters (1,300 feet); it is 4,678 meters (15,348 feet) in length (including 1,877 meters (6,158 feet) of the main bridge) and 26.5 to 33.5 meters (86.9 to 109.9 feet) in width. Its main bridgeheads are 90 meters (300 feet) high each, pulling 392 thick slanting cables together in the shape of double fans so that the central span of the bridge is well poised on the piers and the bridge's stability and vibration resistance are ensured. With six lanes on the deck, the bridge is designed to handle the daily passage of 50,000 motor vehicles. The bridge was completed in 1995.

The Third Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, also called Baishazhou Bridge, was completed in September 2000. Located 8.6 kilometers (5.3 miles) southwest of the First Bridge, construction of Baishazhou Bridge started in 1997. With an investment of over 1.4 billion yuan (about US$ 170,000,000), the bridge, which is 3,586 meters (11,765 feet) long and 26.5 meters (86.9 feet) wide, has six lanes and has a capacity of 50,000 vehicles a day. The bridge is expected to serve as a major passage for the future Wuhan Ring Road, greatly easing the city's traffic and aiding local economic development.

The Yangluo Bridge carries Wuhan's Ring Road across the Yangtze in the city's eastern suburbs (connecting the Hongshan District with the Xinzhou District). It was opened on December 26, 2007.

The Wuhan Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge crosses the Yangtze in the northeastern part of the city, downstream of the Second bridge. It is named after Tianxing Island ( Tianxingzhou), above which it crosses the river. Built at a cost of 11 billion yuan, the 4,657-meter cable suspension bridge was opened on December 26, 2009, in time for the opening of the Wuhan Railway Station. It is a combined road and rail bridge, and carries the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway across the river.

Skyscrapers

The Yellow Crane Tower, historically one of the tallest buildings in Wuhan, is considered one of the Four Great Towers of China and was destroyed twelve times, both by warfare and by fire. The tower is classified as an AAAAA scenic area by the China National Tourism Administration. At 438 meters (1,437 ft) in height, the Wuhan Center skyscraper, the tallest structure in Wuhan and in Central China, is the eighth tallest structure in China. The Minsheng Bank Building, the second tallest structure in Wuhan, was the tallest building in Wuhan when it was completed in 2007. It retained the title until Wuhan Center surpassed it in 2014. Wuhan World Trade Tower is a 273-meter (896 foot) tall skyscraper located in Wuhan. It became the tallest building in Wuhan after its completion in 1998. However, it was surpassed by the Minsheng Bank Building in 2007.

The Wuhan Greenland Center is a planned 636-meter (2,087 ft), 126-floor mixed-use skyscraper currently under construction and scheduled for completion in 2019. If completed as planned, it will be among the world's tallest structures, and one of the world's tallest buildings by occupiable floor height. The Phoenix Towers are proposed supertall skyscrapers planned for construction in Wuhan. At 1 kilometer (3,300 ft) high, the towers would also be among the tallest structures in the world when completed.

Notable Wuhanese

Chang-Lin Tien - seventh Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (1990-1997) and a major founder of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Professor Tien is the first Asian to head a top university in the United States.

E Dongchen - "father of polar surveying and mapping" in China

Weiping Zou - Charles B. de Nancrede Professor of Pathology, Immunology, Biology, and Surgery at the University of Michigan, American Association for Cancer Research Cancer Immunology (CIMM) Chairperson 2018-2019, Abstract Programming Chair for the American Association of Immunologists

Deng Zhuoxiang - professional football player, scored many impressive goals for Chinese national team in important games including 3:0 South Korea and 1:0 France in 2010.

Fu Mingxia - female diver, four-time Olympic Gold Medalist (one in Barcelona 1992, two in Atlanta 1996, one in Sydney 2000), the only diver that has won gold medals at three Olympics as well as one of the very few divers in the world who is able to win world championships in both platform diving and springboard diving.

Gao Ling - professional badminton player, two-time Olympic gold medalist (Sydney 2000, Athens 2004).

Hao Junmin - professional football player, played for Schalke 04 in the German League.

Hu Jia - Chinese diver who won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in the men's 10 meter platform.

Mei Fang - Chinese footballer playing for Guangzhou Evergrande in the Chinese Super League.

Li Na - former tennis player, champion of the French Open 2011 and Australian Open 2014.

Li Ting - tennis player, Olympic gold medalist (in women's doubles, Athens 2004).

Qiao Hong - female table tennis player, two-time Olympic gold medalist (in women's doubles, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996).

Rong Hao - professional football player, with six Chinese Super League titles and two AFC Champions League champion titles.

Tang Jieli - AIBA Women's Boxing World Champion.

Xiao Hailiang - Chinese diver, Olympic gold medalist (in 3-meter (9.8-foot) springboard synchronized diving, Sydney 2000).

Zeng Cheng - professional football player, with six Chinese Super League titles and two AFC Champions League champion titles.

Zhou Jihong - female diver, Olympic gold medalist (Los Angeles 1984), the first Chinese athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in diving.

Tian Tao - Olympic weightlifter

Lü Xiaojun - Olympic weightlifter

Other fields

Saint Francis Regis Clet, who was martyred here

Hua Mulan - Ancient Chinese heroine whose story has been passed through ages in China and has been presented in a great number of books and motion pictures, including the Disney animated feature Mulan (1998).

Samuel David Hawkins - American soldier in the Korean War who was captured by the North, subsequently defected to China at the time of the Korean Armistice Agreement. He worked as a mechanic in Wuhan before returning to the US in 1957.

Wu Shuqing - female revolutionary and militia leader during the Xinhai Revolution

Xiong Bingkun (熊秉坤) - the soldier who started and led the Wuhan Uprising in the Chinese Revolution of 1911 which gave birth to the Republic of China, Asia's first republic country.

Zhong Ziqi - The best friend of Yu Boya, an ancient Chinese musician whose musical composition "Flowing Water" was included on the Voyager Golden Record

Sister cities

And Wuhan has friendly exchange relationships with:

Nature and wildlife

References

Further reading

Acerbi, Jacob (2020). Chaos and Grime: A Year in the Life of a Chinese City. Philadelphia: LSI Holdings, LLC. ISBN 1734454415, 978-1734454413.

Walravens, Hartmut. "German Influence on the Press in China." In: Newspapers in International Librarianship: Papers Presented by the Newspaper Section at IFLA General Conferences. Walter de Gruyter, 2003. ISBN 3110962799, 978-3110962796 Also available at (Archive) the website of the Queens Library This version does not include the footnotes visible in the Walter de Gruyter version. Also available in Walravens, Hartmut and Edmund King. Newspapers in international librarianship: papers presented by the newspapers section at IFLA General Conferences. K.G. Saur, 2003. ISBN 3598218370, 978-3598218378.

External links

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( Wuhan ( simplified Chinese: 武汉; traditional Chinese: 武漢, [ù.xân] listen )) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China.[16] It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China,[17] with a population of over 11 million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city and one of the nine National Central Cities of China.[18] The name "Wuhan" came from the city's historical origin from the conglomeration of Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang, which are collectively known as the "Three Towns of Wuhan" (武汉三镇).

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i disagree with the post below from saifuldin as from what i know, The Virus is spread Airborne

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We can take care of our own hygiene by wearing face masks if we are sick or have a flu and we can regularly wash and clean our hands or any body part that has a lot of contact with things outside to prevent the spread of the virus if we accidentally carried it when we were travelling

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Let's help teach the uninfected people to avoid unhygienic habits to stay safe and healthy- Syafiqah

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Agreeing with methods to prevent virus (hamdani)

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Agreeing with methods to prevent virus (hamdani)

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I can agree that all of us should be aware of wearing masks to prevent the spread of the virus. It is very important for this contribution as many of us are doing the same thing to prevent the spread. Let us all play a part to wear the mask together and fight the virus with every resources we have :))^_________^

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if corona doesnt stop it may literally be the end of world

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As a mysterious virus spread through Wuhan last month, the World Health Organization had a message: China has got this.

And as the coronavirus swept across the Chinese heartland and jumped to other nations

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people from china should learn how to prevent corona virus since the number of people getting the virus are rising

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What is the motive of putting the muslims in the concentration camp? There are still alot more muslims out there in the world.There is no point of putting the muslims
in the concentration camp.There is nothing that would stop the muslim  from praying to their god

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Turn off air-conditioners to reduce being infected

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I agree with abbas as making fake news would cause public distress and an example would be panic shopping and fear to go out.

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The doctors and nurses/hospital staffs practice good personal hygiene because it's part of their job, so there is no need to distance yourself or anyone from them, in fact we should be thanking them. Their the ones taking the risk to look after and treat the infected patients. So we should respect them more because it is not so easy to do what their doing.

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I feel that the ASEAN countries may also help the World Health Organization in finding vaccines for the virus

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The Wuhan coronavirus, officially known as 2019-nCoV, has so far killed 425 people in China and one in the Philippines. More than 20,000 infections have been confirmed.

The admission came from the Politburo Standing Committee, the most powerful body of the Chinese Communist Party which rules the country.

It said: "In response to the shortcomings and deficiencies exposed in the response to this epidemic, we must improve the national emergency management system and improve our ability to handle urgent and dangerous tasks."

👉 Ms Shynn's comments: Check the validity of the term for the virus. It has been reported in the news :)

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We should be Glad that there are people who are responsible enough to wear a mask out and make sure that they keep their personal hygiene clean. We should be Glad that the government take this very seriously and making sure that singaporeans don’t get infected .

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Trying out a new thing is fine.But eating a live animal infront of your eyes.Dont you feel bad?

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Danial

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Editor's note: For the latest updates on the 2023 coronavirus outbreak, see our news coverage.

COVID-19 is a disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 that can trigger what doctors call a respiratory tract infection. In early 2020, the World Health Organization identified SARS-CoV-2 as a new type of coronavirus. The outbreak quickly spread around the world. It can affect your upper respiratory tract ( sinuses, nose, and throat) or lower respiratory tract (windpipe and lungs).

It spreads the same way other coronaviruses do, mainly through person-to-person contact. Infections range from mild to deadly.

SARS-CoV-2 is one of seven types of coronavirus, including the ones that cause severe diseases like Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The other coronaviruses cause most of the colds that affect us during the year but aren't a serious threat to otherwise healthy people.
Is there more than one strain of SARS-CoV-2?
Yes, the COVID-19 virus continues to mutate and there are several variants that are now spreading. Some are more contagious as well as more deadly than the original virus.

Throughout the pandemic, scientists have kept a close eye on variants like:
How long will the coronavirus last?
There's no way to tell how long the pandemic will continue. There are many factors, including the public's efforts to slow the spread, researchers' work to learn more about the virus, their search for a treatment, and the success of the vaccines.

The main symptoms include:

Fever

Coughing

Shortness of breath

Trouble breathing

Fatigue

Chills, sometimes with shaking

Body aches

Headache

Sore throat

Congestion/runny nose

Loss of smell or taste

Nausea

Diarrhea

The virus can lead to pneumonia, respiratory failure, heart problems, liver problems, septic shock, and death. Many COVID-19 complications may be caused by a condition known as cytokine release syndrome or a cytokine storm. This is when an infection triggers your immune system to flood your bloodstream with inflammatory proteins called cytokines. They can kill tissue and damage your organs. In some cases, lung transplants have been needed.

If you notice the following severe symptoms in yourself or a loved one, get medical help right away:

Strokes have also been reported in some people who have COVID-19. Remember FAST:

Face. Is one side of the person's face numb or drooping? Is their smile lopsided?

Arms. Is one arm weak or numb? If they try to raise both arms, does one arm sag?

Speech. Can they speak clearly? Ask them to repeat a sentence.

Time. Every minute counts when someone shows signs of a stroke. Call 911 right away.

If you're infected, symptoms can show up in as few as 2 days or as many as 14. It varies from person to person.

According to researchers in China, these were the most common symptoms among people who had COVID-19:

Fever 99%

Fatigue 70%

Cough 59%

Lack of appetite 40%

Body aches 35%

Shortness of breath 31%

Mucus/phlegm 27%

Some people who are hospitalized for COVID-19 also have dangerous blood clots, including in their legs, lungs, and arteries.
What to do if you think you have it
If you live in or have traveled to an area where COVID-19 is spreading:

If you don't feel well, stay home. Even if you have mild symptoms like a headache and runny nose, stay in until you're better. This lets doctors focus on people who are more seriously ill and protects health care workers and people you might meet along the way. You might hear this called self-isolation. Try to stay in a separate room away from other people in your home. Use a separate bathroom if you can.

Call the doctor if you have trouble breathing. You need to get medical help as soon as possible. and go to the emergency room.

Test yourself or get tested. Home testing kits are available which can help confirm your infection and let you know when it is safe to be around others. Local health officials and their online portals can also advise you where to go for testing and treatment.

Follow your doctor's advice and keep up with the news on COVID-19. Between your doctor and health care authorities, you'll get the care you need and information on how to prevent the virus from spreading.

For more information about COVID-19, see our FAQ.
How do I know if it's COVID-19, a cold, or the flu?
Symptoms of COVID-19 can be similar to a bad cold or the flu. Your doctor will suspect COVID-19 if:

You have a fever and a cough.

You have been exposed to people who have it within the last 14 days.

Is COVID-19 worse than the flu?
Unlike the flu, a lot of people aren't immune to the coronavirus, and because it has been mutating with new strains. If you do catch it, the virus triggers your body to make things called antibodies. Researchers are looking at whether the antibodies give you protection against catching it again.

The coronavirus has caused higher rates of severe illness and death than the flu. But the symptoms themselves can vary widely from person to person.
Is COVID-19 seasonal like the flu?
While scientists hoped initially that higher temperatures and humidity levels might help slow the spread of the coronavirus, that was not the case. Experts advise caution and say thorough public health efforts have more influence than weather on the spread. Also, past flu pandemics have happened year-round.

Researchers aren't sure what caused it, and investigations as to its origin are ongoing. There's more than one type of coronavirus. They're common in people and in animals including bats, camels, cats, and cattle. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is similar to MERS and SARS. They all came from bats.

Anyone can get COVID-19, and most infections are mild. The older you are, the higher your risk of severe illness.

You also a have higher chance of serious illness if you have one of these health conditions:

Chronic kidney disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

A weakened immune system because of an organ transplant

Obesity

Serious heart conditions such as heart failure or coronary artery disease

Sickle cell disease

Type 2 diabetes

Conditions that could lead to severe COVID-19 illness include:

Moderate to severe asthma

Diseases that affect your blood vessels and blood flow to your brain

Cystic fibrosis

High blood pressure

A weakened immune system because of a blood or bone marrow transplant, HIV, or medications like corticosteroids

Dementia

Liver disease

Pregnancy

Damaged or scarred lung tissue (pulmonary fibrosis)

Smoking

Thalassemia

Type 1 diabetes

Depression

Anxiety

Schizophrenia

Some children and teens who are in the hospital with COVID-19 have an inflammatory condition that doctors are calling multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. Doctors think it may be linked to the virus. It causes symptoms similar to those of toxic shock and of Kawasaki disease, a condition that causes inflammation in kids' blood vessels.

If you have preexisting mood disorders, you may be at high risk for hospitalization or death but not necessarily severe COVID-19.

That said, having schizophrenia is the biggest risk factor for besides age for COVID mortality. Those with schizophrenia spectrum disorders are prone to metabolic syndrome, which includes increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, and is associated with systemic inflammation. All of which is exacerbated by COVID.

Mood and anxiety disorders were not connected to the higher risk, but people living with mental health conditions may have certain symptoms that can interfere with their ability to care for themselves and be engaged in their health decisions. This can make it hard to effectively follow health behaviors like maintaining social distancing or staying in quarantine to reduce the spread of the infection.

Moreover, people with mental health and mood disorders are also more likely to have conditions like diabetes and heart problems which are major risk factors for severe COVID-19.

There are also several socio-economic reasons why preexisting mood disorders can increase your chances of hospitalization and death if you get COVID-19.
This includes:

Poverty

Lack of access to preventative health care

Ability to understand health recommendations

Lack of access to affordable health care

Living in tight spaces or facilities like nursing homes, homeless shelters, prisons, or psychiatric inpatient units

How does COVID-19 spread?
COVID-19 mainly spreads from person to person. People release respiratory fluids during exhalation (e.g., quiet breathing, speaking, singing, exercise, coughing, sneezing) in the form of droplets across a spectrum of sizes. These droplets carry viruses and transmit infection. The largest droplets settle out of the air rapidly, within seconds to minutes. The smallest very fine droplets, and aerosol particles formed when these fine droplets rapidly dry, are small enough that they can remain suspended in the air for minutes to hours.

The risk of transmission is greatest within three to six feet of an infectious source where the concentration of these very fine droplets and particles is greatest. If you breathe them in or swallow them, the virus can get into your body. Some people who have the virus don't have symptoms, but they can still spread the virus.

While less likely, you can also get the virus from touching a surface or object the virus is on, then touching your mouth, nose, or possibly your eyes. Most viruses can live for several hours on a surface that they land on. OVID-19 can last for several hours on various types of surfaces:

Copper (pennies, teakettles, cookware): 4 hours

Cardboard (shipping boxes): up to 24 hours

Plastic (milk containers, detergent bottles, subway and bus seats, elevator buttons):2 to 3 days

Stainless steel (refrigerators, pots and pans, sinks, some water bottles): 2 to 3 days

That's why it's important to wash or sanitize your hands regularly and disinfect surfaces to get rid of the virus.

Some dogs and cats have tested positive for the virus. A few have shown signs of illness. There's no evidence that humans can catch this coronavirus from an animal, but it appears it can be passed from humans to animals.
What is community spread?
Doctors and health officials use this term when they don't know the source of the infection. With COVID-19, it usually refers to someone who gets the virus even though they haven't been exposed to someone who has COVID-19.

In February 2020, the CDC confirmed a COVID-19 infection in California in a person who had not traveled to an affected area or been exposed to someone with the disease. This marked the first instance of community spread in the U.S. It's likely that person was exposed to someone who was infected but didn't know it. This type of occurrence has been happening with the variants as well.
How fast is it spreading?
The number of people infected or re-infected by COVID-19 changes every day. See our news story for the latest updates on this developing story.

How contagious is the coronavirus?
The transmission rate is relatively high. Early research has estimated that one person who has it can spread it to between 2 and 3.5 others. By comparison, one person who has the seasonal flu will pass it to between 1.1 and 2.3 others.

The Omicron variant, which is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States, is highly contagious and spreads faster than the original virus.

The CDC reports there is evidence COVID-19 can be transmitted if you get within 6 feet of someone who is infectious for a total of 15 minutes throughout a day.

We can work to lower the transmission rate by wearing high-quality face masks when we can't stay 6 feet away from others, washing hands often, keeping common surfaces clean, limiting contact with other people, and getting vaccinated.
Can coronavirus be transmitted through groceries, packages, or food?
You're much more likely to get COVID-19 from another person than from packages, groceries, or food. If you're in a high-risk group, stay home and use a delivery service or have a friend shop for you. Have them leave the items outside your front door, if you can. If you do your own shopping, wear a high-quality face mask and try to stay at least 6 feet away from other shoppers.

Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds before and after bringing things into your home. The coronavirus can linger on hard surfaces, so clean and disinfect countertops and anything else your bags has touched. You can wipe down plastic, metal, or glass packaging with soap and water if you want.

There's no evidence that anyone has gotten COVID-19 from food or food containers.

Call your doctor or local health department if you think you've been exposed and have symptoms like:

Fever of 100 F or higher

Cough

Trouble breathing

Home testing has advanced considerably since the beginning of the pandemic and you can readily test yourself.
Otherwise, testing facilities are readily available in most areas. While some require an appointment, others are simply drive-up. Home testing kits are also widely available.

A swab test is the most common testing method. It looks for signs of the virus in your upper respiratory tract. You or the person giving the test puts a swab up your nose to get a sample from the back of your nose and throat. That sample usually goes to a lab that looks for viral material, but some areas may have rapid tests that give results in as little as 15 minutes.

If there are signs of the virus, the test is positive. A negative test could mean there is no virus or there wasn't enough to measure. That can happen early in an infection. It usually takes 24 hours to get results, but the tests must be collected, stored, shipped to a lab, and processed.

The FDA has granted authorizations for several at-home nasal swab tests, which you collect yourself and express ship back to the lab for analysis as well as at-home rapid tests. You can buy these over the counter in pharmacies, at retail stores, or online. At-home tests are also available for free at some local health departments or federally qualified health centers.

A swab test can only tell whether you have the virus in your body at that moment. But you may also consider taking an antibody test which can show whether you've ever been exposed to the virus, even if you didn't have symptoms. This is important in officials' efforts to learn how widespread COVID-19 is. In time, it might also help them figure out who's immune to the virus.

The FDA is working with laboratories across the country to develop more tests.

Getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is a key part of prevention. But you should also take these steps:

Cover your nose and mouth in public. If you have COVID-19, you can spread it even if you don't feel sick. Wear a mask to protect others. This isn't a replacement for social distancing. You still need to keep a 6-foot distance between yourself and those around you. Don't put a face covering on anyone who is:

Under 2 years old

Having trouble breathing

Unconscious or can't remove the mask on their own for other reasons

Wash your hands often with soap and water or clean them with an alcohol-based sanitizer. This kills viruses on your hands.

Don't touch your face. Coronaviruses can live on surfaces you touch for several hours. If they get on your hands and you touch your eyes, nose, or mouth, they can get into your body.

Practice social distancing. Because you can have and spread the virus without knowing it, you should stay home as much as possible. If you do have to go out, stay at least 6 feet away from others.

Clean and disinfect. You can clean first with soap and water, but disinfect surfaces you touch often, like tables, doorknobs, light switches, toilets, faucets, and sinks. Use a mix of household bleach and water (1/3 cup bleach per gallon of water, or 4 teaspoons bleach per quart of water) or a household cleaner that's approved to treat SARS-CoV-2. You can check the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website to see if yours made the list. Wear gloves when you clean and throw them away when you're done.

There's no proof that herbal therapies and teas can prevent infection.
COVID-19 preparation tips
In addition to practicing the prevention tips listed above, you can:

Meet as a household or larger family to talk about who needs what.

If you have people at a higher risk, ask their doctor what to do.

Talk to your neighbors about emergency planning. Join your neighborhood chat group or website to stay in touch.

Find community aid organizations that can help with health care, food delivery, and other supplies.

Make an emergency contact list. Include family, friends, neighbors, carpool drivers, doctors, teachers, employers, and the local health department.

Choose a room (or rooms) where you can keep someone who's sick or who's been exposed separate from the rest of you.

Talk to your child's school about keeping up with assignments.

Set yourself up to work from home if your office is closed.

Reach out to friends or family if you live alone. Make plans for them to check on you by phone, email, or video chat.

A mask is an added layer of protection for everyone, on top of vaccines and social distancing efforts. You can spread the virus when you talk or cough, even if you don't know that you have it or if you aren't showing signs of infection.

It's important to wear a high-quality mask in a variety of situations:

Wear a mask indoors in public places if you're in an area where there's a high or "substantial" amount of COVID spreading around. That goes for people 2 years old and up.

If you have a chronic health condition or you're taking meds that weaken your immune system, wear a mask in indoor public places even if you're fully vaccinated. Do this unless your doctor tells you otherwise. In general, you don't need to wear a mask outside, where it's harder for the coronavirus to spread. But if COVID-19 cases are high in your area, consider wearing one in crowded outdoor places and for outdoor get-togethers that involve close contact with people who aren't fully vaccinated.

Anyone should wear a face mask if they're sick and around other people or animals, even at home. Caregivers should use them when cleaning and disinfecting a sick person's bedroom or bathroom. If you need to call 911, put on a mask before medical help arrives.

Some people shouldn't wear masks:

Kids under 2 years old

Someone with a disability who can't wear a mask or can't safely wear one to the disability

A person who has a job in which wearing a mask would create a risk to co-workers' health or safety as determined by the workplace risk assessment

What are the different types of face masks?
You have several options:

Cloth masks are washable and reusable. The best ones have multiple layers of breathable fabric and fit snugly over your nose and mouth. It's a good idea to buy ones that come with a nose wire and are made with fabric that can block light.

Disposable masks, also called surgical masks, are also widely available. Choose ones that have several layers of non-woven material. Pick a size that fits properly over your nose and mouth and comes with a nose wire. Don't wear one that has gaps around the sides of your face or nose, or has wet or dirty material.

N95 respirator masks fit tightly around your face and filter out 95% or more of the smallest particles in the air.

It's fine to buy a basic, disposable N95 respirator. Choose one that's high quality and says "NIOSH Approved" on the label.
Is it safe to travel during a pandemic?
Crowded places can raise your chances of getting COVID-19. It's important to check the status of COVID-19 transmissions in the area where you travel before you go and take the necessary precautions while there.

A few questions may help you decide whether it's safe to travel:

Is the coronavirus spreading where you're going?

Will you have close contact with other people during the trip?

Are you at higher risk of severe illness if you catch the virus?

Do you live with someone who has a serious medical condition?

Will the place where you'll be staying be cleaned?

Will you have access to food and other necessities?

If you choose to travel, stay away from sick people. Wash your hands often, and try not to touch your face. Wear a high-quality cloth face mask when you are around other people.

How can you help stop the spread of the coronavirus?
Because the virus spreads from person to person, it's important to limit your contact with other people as much as possible. and avoid large gatherings. Most states and cities have lifted restrictions but this doesn't mean the virus is gone. Continue to follow safety practices such as wearing a high-quality cloth face mask in public places and washing your hands.

The following terms have now become commonplace:

Social distancing or physical distancing, keeping space between yourself and other people when you have to go out

Quarantine, keeping someone home and separated from other people if they might have been exposed to the virus

Isolation, keeping sick people away from healthy people, including using a separate "sick" bedroom and bathroom when possible

Precautions should still be followed even if you are vaccinated.

The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older be vaccinated. There are four vaccines, which have been granted FDA approval; Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax, and Johnson & Johnson.

Pfizer and Moderna have developed bivalent boosters, which are so named because they protect against both the original virus that causes COVID-19 and the Omicron variant BA.4 and BA.5

Top health experts have a preference for the type of vaccine that you choose. They recommend that you choose a vaccine made with mRNA (like the ones from Pfizer and Moderna) or DNA like Noravax rather than the J&J vaccine, which is made differently. The recommendation is endorsed by the CDC and comes from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which reviewed the latest evidence on the effectiveness, safety, and rare side effects of the available vaccines.

That said, receiving any COVID-19 vaccine is better than being unvaccinated, experts say.

Booster shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are recommended for everyone 5 years and older at least 2 months after you've gotten your first two doses.

When it comes to boosters, you don't have to stick with same the vaccine you initially got. For example, if your initial doses came from Moderna, you can get a booster dose from Pfizer.

COVID-19 vaccines were developed at an unprecedented speed, with testing in humans starting in March 2020. The FDA says that no corners were cut to allow for approval and that the inoculations are safe. The CDC has said it is safe for pregnant women and there's no evidence that antibodies formed from COVID-19 vaccination cause any problems with pregnancy.

There's no specific treatment for COVID-19. People who get a mild case need care to ease their symptoms, like rest, fluids, and fever control. Take over-the-counter medicine for a sore throat, body aches, and fever. But don't give aspirin to children or teens younger than 19.

You might have heard that you shouldn't take ibuprofen to treat COVID-19 symptoms. But the National Institutes of Health says people who have the virus can use nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or acetaminophen as usual.

Antibiotics won't help because they treat bacteria, not viruses. In January 2022, the FDA limited the use of two monoclonal treatments that previously were used to treat COVID-19 infections after it was found that they were not effective against the Omicron variant. These two monoclonal antibody treatments are bamlanivimab and etesevimab (administered together) and REGEN-COV ( casirivimab and imdevimab). Sotrovimab is the only available monoclonal treatment with activity against the Omicron variant.

Many clinical trials are underway to explore treatments used for other conditions that could fight COVID-19 and to develop new ones.

A variety of steroid medications are being used including dexamethasone which is used to treat conditions such as arthritis, blood/hormone/immune system disorders, and allergic reactions. More studies on effectiveness are still being conducted.
Is there a cure for the coronavirus?
There's no cure yet, but researchers are working hard to find one.

Every case is different. You may have mild flu-like symptoms for a few days after exposure, then get better. But some cases can be severe or fatal.

Symptoms can also linger for weeks, even if they're mild.

More than a third of people older than 18 who have signs of the virus aren't totally recovered 2 or 3 weeks later, according to a CDC survey. Fatigue and cough were the symptoms that were most likely to linger.

Some other people who've had COVID-19 develop a condition similar to myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. They may have brain fog, severe fatigue, pain, trouble thinking, or dizziness.
What is the recovery rate for coronavirus?

Scientists and researchers are constantly tracking COVID-19 infections and recoveries. But they don't have information about the outcome of every infection. Early estimates predict that the overall COVID-19 recovery rate will be between 97% and 99.75%.
Can you get the coronavirus multiple times?
Yes. This is another reason to stay vigilant against becoming infected and transmitting the virus.

As with other coronaviruses that only cause colds, you have a period that you're immune, but that goes away over time. That also appears to be the case with this coronavirus. Immunity is estimated to last up to three months.

Having COVID-19 usually results in antibodies which should help protect you from re-infection. But the virus continues to mutate and these changes can lead to new variants which allow the risk for re-infection.

The CDC is investigating how often reinfections occur, who is at higher risk of reinfection, how soon reinfections take place after a previous infection, and the severity of reinfections compared with initial infections.

Are coronaviruses new?
Coronaviruses were first identified in the 1960s. Almost everyone gets a coronavirus infection at least once in their life, most likely as a young child. In the United States, regular coronaviruses are more common in the fall and winter, but anyone can come down with a coronavirus infection at any time.

The symptoms of most coronaviruses are similar to any other upper respiratory infection, including a runny nose, coughing, sore throat, and sometimes a fever. In most cases, you won't know whether you have a coronavirus or a different cold-causing virus, such as a rhinovirus. You treat this kind of coronavirus infection the same way you treat a cold.
Have there been other serious coronavirus outbreaks?
Coronaviruses have led to two serious outbreaks:

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). About 858 people have died from MERS, which first appeared in Saudi Arabia and then in other countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe. In April 2014, the first American was hospitalized for MERS in Indiana, and another case was reported in Florida. Both had just returned from Saudi Arabia. In May 2015, there was an outbreak of MERS in South Korea, which was the largest outbreak outside of the Arabian Peninsula.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In 2003, 774 people died from an outbreak. As of 2015, there were no further reports of cases of SARS.

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COVID-19 is a new type of coronavirus that causes mild to severe cases. Here's a quick guide on how to spot symptoms, risk factors, prevent spread of the disease, and find out what to do if you think you have it.

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erisha .
other people should not spread fake news , it can cause havoc & panic around the world . don’t treat this virus as a joke , most of the people in China & othrs around the world are dead due to this virus .

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I really appreciate The Chinese in Wuhan trying to contain The virus and Sacrificing Their lives for Others. I also appreciate The Chinese that Refrain from eating these exotic animals

This shows that not all Chinese are ignorant  and Some are actually Concerned about others

👉 Ms Shynn's comments: Is this an issue to do with race?

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Tbh making money from this situation is selfish.But smart

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People should not spread fake news so that people won't get any wrong information and that's what we don't want to happen to any of us. (Abbas)

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i agree with hafiz that Singapore and Malaysia are working together, last week when i went to jb for an event,i went to a shopping mall and when i followed my dad to the carpark,almost 80% of the vehicles in the carpark are from Singapore. I was actually not shock that Singaporean will come to jb to clear out the stock. The reason is was that my dad told me that if the food in singapore has cleared, singaporeans will come to jb to buy more food supply for themselves

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Syafiqah-                                                                                        what can we do to help the quarantine people?

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I agree with the statement below as China did torture and brutally abuse the Muslim.

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Imagine putting other religions in a camp.Just because of a religion.Childish.What makes them have a right over muslim.Who are they to do that?The coronavirus is actually a karma.Family,lives and friends died due to their religion.It actually hurts my feelings knowing what they are doing.Why?

👉 Ms Shynn's comments: Care to share more what and why this hurts your feelings?

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Fight the virus by staying fit, exercise, eating the reccomanded food. Knowing our surrounding?!

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Coronavirus patients, medical staff dance at Wuhan hospital to stay positive

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Coronavirus patients, medical staff dance at Wuhan hospital to stay positive

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I agree with Arief.Luckily for Japan,the 60++ infected people are on board the cruise and not in the country yet.I hope that Japan would come up with more ways to prevent the virus from spreading to the rest of Japan.Japan should also be more alert/aware of the situation that is going on and should take more preventative measure to prevent from getting the virus.We as one Asia should work together to support each other during this time of crisis.😊

👉 Ms Shynn's comments: Have you read the news on how different countries turned the cruise ship away? If you were a passenger of the cruise, how would you feel and react?

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erisha .
in the first place , they shouldn’t have eaten wild animals , they don’t know the consequences if eating it . at least care about your health . I get that they wanna try new things but don’t do things that are insane honestly .

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We should treat nurses and doctors with respect as they are the heroes fighting this virus.We shouldn't be nonchalant towards their work or avoid them whenever we come across them.I am pretty sure they would know themselves if they are ill so we shouldn't worry if we meet them in public transports or anywhere.

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We should be thankful for the doctors and nurses who is out there treating the people who got infected in the hospital. They risk their lifes knowing they have a higher chance to get infected but they do their part as a doctor and a nurse to save and cure patients because they do not want anyone to die from the virus.

👉 Ms Shynn's comments: what can we do as a school or individuals to show our gratitude to them?

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as a start,we can do our part by showing people useful tips that can help people who are concerned about the corona virus. Example is by using social media platform as nowadays people have a social media acount..instagram is one as teenagers have instagram and we can post videos of how to keep yourself save from getting corona virus...as much everyone is worried about the virus,by posting video and pictures on how to keep yourself save,people will eventually share with other people (e.g family members,friends,neighbour

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People are worried about the coronavirus. What if this Wuhan virus is just a distraction to something bigger and deadlier.

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In My Opinion, This may be karma for putting Muslims in a Concentration Camp...
We are all human and should be treated all the same
Though this is my opinion, I DO NOT SUPPORT putting The Chinese in A Concentration camp In Other Countries

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I think they need to be educated on how to eat proper and healthy food like vegetarian food and brown rice and all that I guesss

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Guys dont play play later go jail

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I believe that why people are panicking and could effect the growth of the population of getting the coronavirus increasing is when people post fake news or don't have a reliable source to ensure that the news is true.

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We should treat nurses with more respect as nowadays people are being rude to them and avoiding them.

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On 31 January, the government announced that all travelers arriving from mainland China who had been there in the past 14 days will be barred from entry or transit to Singapore. In fact anyone with a Chinese passport – other than PRs or long-term visit pass holders – will be barred entry. Meanwhile Singaporeans, permanent residents and long-term pass holders who are returning from China will be placed on a 14-day leave of absence. The measure will go into effect at 11:59pm on Saturday 1 February.

Schools have been told to advise students who have travelled to mainland China, or had visiting family from mainland China after Lunar New Year, not to return to school until 14 days after visits, and only if they are symptom free of the coronavirus.

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Rezqi

This Corona Virus just so happens to infect people in Wuhan . So lets not put all the blame onto them . Yes its digusting that they eat bats ,, and bats carried all sorts of different diseases but they should be aware of their mistakes and to not repeat it again . For now its unnecessary to curse Wuhan for being the one tht started it . Imagine if you're the one who started a major virus outbreak , how would u feel ? Now we need to stop cursing one another and instead fight this virus together .

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The virus shouldn't be a valid reason to not go to school. We already know how to prevent contracting the virus.

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Keeping our hands clean and washing the them(WITH SOAP) is a few ways to keep our hygien

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I believe that MOH is doing the best they can to maintain the hygiene .Due to the size of Singapore, we will be infected easily if we dont keep ourselves clean.We should also play our part in this crisis.

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We should support the caretakers of the novel corona virus because no one else is willing to care for them. We should treat them with more respect and not keep our distance from them since it will make them feel like an outcast and that we don't appreciate their hard work.

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I feel that Singaporeans should not be panic buying groceries as it is uneccesary panic and Our Prime Minister have said that we have enough resources but if we do not stop this our resources that could be provided in the upcoming years will be insufficient to feed other Singaporeans

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Yes i can agree that a stereotype of a basic Singaporean is being so kiasu over small things. I can agree that they should not panic so much as they need to think about others who are in need of items too. Shelves in markets are empty in buying e.g instant noodles , rice , toilet paper etc . Yes it is not wrong to purchase such things , but if u are selling it on platforms at high prices , i can say that people will look at Singapore as a stupid country , no offense but what we are doing for the community should be logical then instinct. We would know that many Singaporeans are greedy for money and would do such things to the locals , it is very disappointing and embarrassing even as i am now as a Singaporean

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People in the world should not spread fake news to other people. It may be a joke but some people are concerned with the virus which will make them more worried that as the fake news that some people are spreading may afrect them alot

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I am happy to know that FUJIFILM Holdings are supporting Wuhan's medical team by providing them essential medical equipments to aid those infected with  virus.FUJIFILM Holdings also donated $1m as a relief package for the Wuhan novel Corona virus.In order to support those who are in the frontline.They also made sure to answer all customers' enquires 24 hours a day.😊

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Travelers who cannot delay traveling to China should practice enhanced precautions by avoiding contact with sick people, animals and animal markets and frequently and thoroughly washing hands, the CDC recommends.

The CDC advises washing hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. An alcohol-based hand sanitizer can be used when soap and water are not available.

Discuss travel to China with your healthcare providers, the CDC advises, noting that older adults and travelers with underlying health issues may be at higher risk.

Travelers who've visited China within the past two weeks and are feeling sick with fever, have a cough or difficulty breathing should seek treatment right away and call ahead to tell medical providers about recent travel to China and symptoms.

The CDC also advises potentially infected travelers to avoid contact with others, to not travel while sick and to be sure to cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when coughing or sneezing.

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A new coronavirus, a mysterious SARS-like disease, has spread around China and to three other Asian countries since first emerging in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.”
– CNA, 21-Jan-2020

“A new Chinese coronavirus, a cousin of the SARS virus, has infected more than 200 people since the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December. Scientist Leo Poon, who first decoded the virus, thinks it likely started in an animal and spread to humans.”
– CNN, 21-Jan-2020

“The new coronavirus that has caused a pneumonia outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan can be spread through human-to-human contact, according to Zhong Nanshan, the expert who discovered the SARS virus during an outbreak in China in 2003.
https://www.anticimex.com.sg/our-services/powerful-virus-protection?gclid=CjwKCAiAvonyBRB7EiwAadauqbWxOOJFzgN5diqIot8LmmztG3ypZdktwFTyKlVmceRb79fnAhm-MBoCyQcQAvD_BwE
(Abbas)

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If I were to be in their position, I would have given up on them and I would have left the country . I said this because I know that I will not survive in that situation and I would not want to sacrifice my life for them.

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A Store, a Chalet, an Unsealed Pipe: Coronavirus Hot Spots Flare Far From Wuhan

A handful of buildings around the world have been linked to multiple cases of the new virus, raising fears of rapid transmission.

People wearing overalls and protective masks outside a building in Hong Kong on Tuesday where two residents were found to be infected with the coronavirus.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

HONG KONG — An apartment building in Hong Kong, its units linked by pipes. A department store in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin, where more than 11,000 shoppers and employees mingled. A ski chalet in France, home base for a group of British citizens on vacation.

These sites, scattered around the world, have become linked by a grim commonality: They are places where pockets of new coronavirus cases have emerged in recent days, raising fears about the virus’s ability to spread quickly and far beyond its origins in central China.

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We should not panic and just keep our hygiene clean and avoid going crowded places.

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Some of the Singaporean citizens seem to not care about the outbreak. Many of the cases might have been able to be avoided if Singaporean actually cared about the dangers of this virus. I still see people coughing out in the public without closing their mouths and picking their noses.

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erisha .
we should at least support the Doctors & Nurses there , they’re sacrificing themselves just to have the cure to end the virus , don’t blame the people there , I mean it’s partly their fault for eating wild animals , at least they’re isolating theirselves from the world . for the sake of other people health .

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I agree with ishaan's post because in this world if we are selfish no one will eventually helped us when we are in it. So we should work together and don't be selfish of ourselves and work together in fighting this deadly viruses (Abbas)

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I feel that Singaporeans should NOT be quarantined in their own homes as it takes their freedom away as a Singaporean.

An Alternative of this should be that that take very close care to the persons hygiene and Should be Closely Monitored on their health

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I believe this is karma to them.Watching a live animal die infront of your face just to eat.Pathetic.Atleast kill it first.The animal literally get eaten alive.Imagine being that animal.The pain going throught it.Watching its life taken away in one of the most cruelest form.Just For attention.I hope the people who did that get the pain they deserve.Karma.

👉 Ms Shynn's comments: What does Karma mean to you? Does this belief apply to everyone?

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all students in Singapore should not go to school cause of this virus .

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The Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP) for the new coronavirus lays out activities and resources needed by international health organizations globally, including WHO, to implement priority public health measures in support of countries to prepare and respond to nCoV-2019 for a period February-April 2020. The objectives of the plan are to  limit human-to-human transmission of the virus, particularly in countries most vulnerable if they were to face an outbreak; identify, isolate and care for patients early; communicate critical risk and event information; minimize social and economic impact; reduce virus spread from animal sources; and address crucial unknowns.

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the doctors and nurses in Wuhan are trying their best to take care of the virus and they also want people in the world to be safe and not panic. But at the same time,the doctor and nurses are having a hard time as they have to sacrifice themselves and help the patient who has wuhan

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In my opinion we shouldn't be rude and insult them for eating exotic and probably they wanna try out new things. But we should never insult them as they are normal human being like us. So we shouldn't be racists (Abbas)

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Orange means the outbreak is deemed to have moderate to high public health impact, though the situation is still under control. It is one step below red, which signifies an out-of-control pandemic.

Singapore has put extra measures in place to reduce mingling in schools, tighten access to hospitals and limit large events.

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Some Singaporeans are irresponsible and do not wear masks and go to doctors even though they know that they are sick of the flu.

This Habit of some Singaporeans should stop as it can help identify people that have the Corona Virus and stop spreading sickness

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singapore should appreciate that the virus in Singapore is not that serious unlike wuhan. But people in Singapore are all so scared of the wuhan and even some people buy the food and masks and they sell it on carousell at a more expensive price. My question is that if the corona virus have end in Singapore,will the people who bought a lot of stuff give to the needy ones or will they throw it awau as if its some junk

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China people need to stop eating wild animal and eating them alive. They ate bats,rats,babies,ect. like ew , bats also even contain like 60+ diseases 🤦🏻‍♀️ . Because of them now wuhan virus is created.👏🏻

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It is said that Corona Virus started in bats, specifically horseshoe bat with 96% match I feel that it spreaded to humans due to either people eating bats or an animal ate the bat and we ended up consuming the meat without cooking it properly.

I also feel that we should not use the virus as an excuse to be racist or make hurtful comments about China. We should support those who really needs help

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Those who sell what they bought at carousel are selfish people.All they think of is money now as people are looking for grocery and have to stock up.They are taking advantage of this situation to make money which is very selfish and disgraceful.There was an american man whom i saw at you tube react about singapore hoarding all the groceries and everyday essentials.However there are some people whom are benifitting or helping the society by giving masks for free on carousell or putting it in the lift in order for the people to use.This is what we call Singaporeans whom think about other people and not about themselves.To those whom sell their products for an expensive price should have not done this and should help others too.

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Doctor got arrested for telling the truth of the virus. People thought that he is spreading fake rumours to make the people scared.

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Coronavirus - Doctors Arrested for revealing the truth

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I agree with rezqi, they weren't the ones who caused the outbreak, the virus happened to start there.

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Coronavirus can be easily spread in Singapore because Singapore is a small island with a lot of people living. So only solution is to be mindful of where u are and know the people around you.(IZAAZ)

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That would potentially mean at least 1 in 20 people would have been infected in the city by the time the epidemic peaks, Kucharski said, adding that this may change if transmission patterns slow in coming days. The prediction doesn't indicate a coming surge in cases in Wuhan, but that the current cumulative total doesn't reflect all infections, especially mild ones, that have occurred.

Health authorities in China and around the world are anxiously waiting to know whether the world's largest known quarantine effort has been effective in containing the pneumonia-causing virus in Wuhan and across other cities in Hubei province, a landlocked region of 60 million people.

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The World Funding cause of the Convid-19 (hamdani<(￣︶￣)>)

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The World Funding cause of the Convid-19 (hamdani<(￣︶￣)>)

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almost all the countries are encountering the coronavirus and spending alot on our resources. We should be thanking our own government for doing such things to keep us safe and to protect especially the young generation. Billions of us are fighting this outbreak and i believe together we can defeat it. We should really be appreciative to all doctor's and nurses in the world as they are sacrificing alot more than resources , they are sacrificing their lives. While many of us are already worried as DORSCON is now Orange and being kiasu buying everything in order to survive , quite frankly it is very unecessary for us to do this as we are just thinking for ourselves and not the people around us. Let us make things smooth and pray for the best of us to believe together we can defeat the virus itself :)

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Due to singapore current way of socialising trust me the virus can infect others real quick for an example uncle2 aunty2 at coffee shop sneeze here and there anyhow.
👉 Ms Shynn's comments: So what can be done / what have we done so far? Is it effective?

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About 200 police officers have been deployed islandwide to administer security at government quarantine facilities, and more may be roped in when more of these facilities are set up, Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said on Monday (Feb 10).

They will, among other things, ensure that law and order is maintained at the facilities. Also, they check regularly that "quarantine is being observed", said Mr Shanmugam.

He was speaking to reporters during a visit to Civil Service Club @ Changi II, a chalet which has been designated a government quarantine facility.

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Rezqi

Lets not discriminate Wuhan for being the one that started the virus . Yes they did start the outbreak but it does not mean we can be racist and insult them . They are still trying their best to fight against this virus . Lets all lend a helping hand and fight this Corona Virus together

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In my opinion China in general should stop encouraging citizens to eat live animals and exotic animals as it is very unhealthy and may start a new virus or spread the virus

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It could affect China and USA in trading phase 1 read this (Abbas)

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I think that the people in china have to control what they eat cause nowadays they just eat dogs, cats ,rats , bats, snakes and even humans. They should learn how to eat like what we eat such as instant noodles, McDonald's and kfc and mala and all that stuff. They eat things what people in here don't eat . They shouldn't focus on eating animals only. Wild animals may spread diseases or virus. I think they should practice the good hygiene practice and good sanitation. I don't think they should anyhow kill animals. So yea I think they have to control what they eat

👉 Ms Shynn's comments: Does everyone here eat instant noodles, fast food and mala daily? What are the health benefits of these food?
.

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I feel bad for Japan as they were affected so much by the virus and they just wanted to enjoy their cruise.I pity Japan as they were affected by China's carelessness but Asia finna work together to beat this virus.We are strong enough

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The health ministries of Malaysia and Singapore will form a joint working committee headed by the respective deputy ministers to manage the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. The two countries will also scrutinise cross-border case screening and management.

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People who is infected or sick should just stay at home and rest and see a doctor,wearing a mask outside.When the number of cases is increasing rapidly , people should not travel to other countries since they will spread the virus especially people from China,since they could also spread it to other countries even though there is no symptons shown they might have the virus.

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The frontline medical staff in Wuhan work more then 10 hours in a day and some of then only could have less then 5 hours of sleep yet some people only think about them self/family those people don't think about the medical staff as they are humans to they won't be able to save everyone.its normal to feel worried about your family members but have they ever think about that the frontline medical staff also have family and friends, the staff could choose to be even more safe by staying at home with their family but they didnt as Wuhan needed doctors/nurse.for the girls that were in the frontline serving people they even cut off the long hair to save more time so that they can help more people,the frontline staff wear the n95 mask for so long until there is the mark on their face when they remove the mask.

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Try not to cause too much trouble and stop spreading fame news. Try to help others to understand the situation as they might not understand it. Resulting in this kind of behaviour. We shloud educate them and tell them the proper thing to do. And people who are selling things for expensive price shouldnt do that as why arent we helping our own country people instead tryna earn from this crisis.

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The coronavirus is spreading more widely in Singapore, with more than half of the 43 people infected here now being locally transmitted cases. Six of the patients are in critical condition.

Singapore is now the country with the highest number of coronavirus patients outside of China. This excludes the cruise ship docked in Japan, which is classified as an international conveyance.

India started screening passengers on flights coming in from Singapore and Thailand for the coronavirus, and has further restricted travel from China, as part of preventive measures to contain its spread.

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Due to Singapore's size and population, the virus could be easily spread from one to one.