Should You Worry?

The pictures look like stills from a Hollywood movie—haunted-looking people in airports, surgical masks clamped to their faces, flimsy shields against the latest virus that threatens the world.

- Shougat Dasgupta

The epicenter may be Wuhan, in China, where the virus was identified in early December, but cases of the deadly Coronavirus have been reported in over a dozen countries across the world, from Australia to the US, to Germany and Sri Lanka. In China, as of January 28, there have been 106 confirmed deaths. The virus, according to Chinese scientists, likely originates from bats with over a decade’s worth of research showing that Coronaviruses in bats can cause human pandemics with unusual alacrity. This novel (as in new) Coronavirus, some scientists argue, might be even more dangerous to humans than others such as SARS, the viral respiratory disease that caused hundreds of deaths around the world in eight or so months from 2002 to 2003.

In India, three people were kept under observation in a Delhi hospital for possibly contracting the Coronavirus. The superintendent at the Delhi hospital told reporters that the men under observation had respiratory problems and had contracted coughs, colds, and fevers. Other patients in hospitals from Jaipur to Kerala have also been kept under observation. A single case in neighboring Nepal was reported on January 24. Government authorities say they are being vigilant, running thousands of checks on travelers from the many countries in which people have been affected by Coronaviruses, but some experts have called into question the preparedness of the country’s medical system to deal with any extensive outbreak.