S/M Coronavirus
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans.
Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.
Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death.
Standard recommendations to prevent infection spread include regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs. Avoid close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing.
The mission of Our World in Data is to make data and research on the world’s largest problems understandable and accessible.
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While most of our work focuses on large problems that humanity has faced for a long time – such as child mortality, natural disasters, poverty and almost 100 other problems (see here) – this article focuses on a new, emerging global problem: the ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease [COVID-19].
The outbreak started in China in late 2019 and by March 2020 the disease has spread to countries around the world.
Note: To inform yourself and understand the risk to the public we recommend to rely on your government body responsible for health and the World Health Organization (their site is here).
Note: This article covers a developing situation and the Our World in Data team is regularly updating it: The last update was made on March 11, 2020.
About this page
The purpose of this article on COVID-19 is to aggregate existing research, bring together the relevant data and allow readers to make sense of the published data and early research on the coronavirus outbreak.
Limitations of current research and data, and limitations of our reporting on current knowledge
Most of our work focuses on established problems, for which we can refer to well-established research and data.
COVID-19 is different. All data and research on the virus is preliminary; researchers are rapidly learning more about a new and evolving problem. It is certain that the research we present here will be revised in the future. But based on our mission we feel it is our role to present clearly what the current research and data tells us about this emerging problem and especially provide an understanding of what can and cannot be said based on this available knowledge.
As always in our work, one important strategy of dealing with this problem is to always link to the underlying original research and data so that everyone can understand how we arrive at the statements we make. But scrutiny of all reported research and data is very much required. We welcome your feedback.
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