The US has its first case of the new Wuhan coronavirus

Illustration by Ana Kova

A case of the new virus spreading rapidly in China has been reported in a patient in Seattle, Washington, Reuters reports. The patient had recently returned from China, and is clinically healthy but still being monitored. This is the first US case of the virus, which was first detected in Wuhan, a city in central China in late December 2019. It has already sickened around 300 people and killed six.
Despite the case report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said during a press briefing that they believe the threat to the US remains low. The virus is currently known as 2019-nCoV. The designation indicates that it is a coronavirus, the family of viruses that also caused the SARS outbreak in 2003. That outbreak killed…

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