In the Early Stages of Coronavirus Disease-2019: What It is, What Precautions to Take, and Why Social Distancing is Necessary

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Authors

  • Saima Huq George Washington University, 2121 I St NW,Washington, DC 20052, USA
  • Sarah Afework Piedmont Columbus Regional Research, 710 Center St, Columbus, GA 31904, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17140/PHOJ-5-142

Keywords:

enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses of zoonotic origin.

Abstract

In December 2019, a previously unknown pathogen emerged in the city of Wuhan in central China. A novel pneumonia was caused, and on December 31, 2019, the outbreak of “pneumonia of an unknown cause” was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO).1The pathogen was identified as belonging to the family Coronaviridae, specifically the genera Beta-Coronavirus (β-CoVs), which are enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses of zoonotic origin.

References

World Health Organization (WHO) Web site. https://www. who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public. 2020. Accessed March 15, 2020. Short Communication | Volume 5 | Issue 2|

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Published

2025-09-03

How to Cite

Saima Huq, & Sarah Afework. (2025). In the Early Stages of Coronavirus Disease-2019: What It is, What Precautions to Take, and Why Social Distancing is Necessary. Public Health - Open Journal, 5(2), 20–21. https://doi.org/10.17140/PHOJ-5-142

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 2 (2020): Volume 5 Issue 2 2020

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All content published in Public Health - Open Journal (PHOJ) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license allows anyone to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work — including for commercial purposes — provided appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source.