The pneumonia epidemic caused by the 2019-nCov coronavirus in Wuhan is making world public opinion extremely confused.

The emergence of an epidemic in the same family as the SARS virus that killed 800 people in 2002 took place at a very bad time: Lunar New Year – when hundreds of millions of Chinese people began to move back to their hometowns.

It can be said that the epidemic has surprised many people, but Eric Toner – a scientist from Johns Hopkins University Medical Center (USA) does not think so.

`For a long time, I thought that if there was a new epidemic, it would have to be from a coronavirus,` Toner shared.

The epidemic in Wuhan is not currently considered a global emergency, but there are currently 41 people infected outside the mainland’s borders – including Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore.

`We currently do not know how contagious this virus is. What we have determined is that it spreads from person to person, but to what extent is unknown.`

Toner’s comments are also completely well-founded, as experts recently determined that the new nCov virus can spread even when the patient has not yet shown symptoms – something that did not happen with SARS.

Wuhan corona virus

Toner’s scenario simulates a virus with the abbreviation name CAPS.

The CAPS virus in Toners’ model will be resistant to all modern vaccines.

Flights were canceled en masse, tourism dropped by 45%.

The epidemic will immediately cause a global financial crisis: the stock market will decrease by 20% – 40%, GDP will decrease by 11%.

In the scenario, scientists cannot promptly produce a vaccine to prevent the epidemic.

But of course, this does not mean the Wuhan virus is the same.

`If we can create new vaccines within months instead of years, the story will become completely different,` Toner shared.

Reference: Business Insider, The Guardian