Epidemic size of novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia in the Epicenter Wuhan: using data of five-countries' evacuation action

Hongxin Zhao; Sailimai Man; Bo Wang; Yi Ning

In the late December 2019, a pneumonia, now known as novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia (NCP) caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), emerged in Wuhan, Hubei province, China [1] . The outbreak of NCP quickly showed the characteristic of human-to-human transmission. Chinese health authorities did an immediate investigation to characterize and control the disease, including isolation of suspected cases, monitoring of close contacts, collection of epidemiological and clinical data from confirmed patients, and development of diagnostic and treatment procedures [2] . As of Feb 4, 2020, a total of 24,324 cases with laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection have been detected in China, of whom 490 have died [3] . There were 8,351 cases confirmed in Wuhan, 362 of the confirmed cases have died, the case fatality was much higher in Wuhan than in the other areas of China [4] . Meanwhile, NCP rapidly spread from China to other countries. After assessing the virus-related information, the WHO decided to declare it as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on Jan 31, 2020 [5] .