China’s mysterious virus spreads to Beijing and Shenzhen

An outbreak of a new respiratory virus in China has spread to more cities. The new coronavirus strain was first detected in Wuhan but health officials have now recorded cases in Beijing and Shenzhen in Guangdong province. They said a third person was confirmed to have died from the virus and nearly 200 further cases were recorded over the weekend. The news comes as China gears up for the Lunar New Year holidays later this week, when hundreds of millions of Chinese travel domestically and abroad. The country is on high alert as the death toll is rising and the virus is spreading. Which is the most concerning? BBC Newsday put that question to Professor Linfa Wang, the director of Emerging Infectious Diseases at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.

(Photo: Medical staff members carry a patient --infected by a mysterious virus-- into a hospital in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on January 18, 2020. Credit: Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)