Symptoms of coronavirus 2020: What Will It Take to Stop Coronavirus?

Stringer/Getty ImagesA new respiratory coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is rapidly spreading throughout China, where authorities have imposed an unprecedented travel lockdown in 16 cities with a combined population of over 50 million.

With no vaccine or treatment, the most effective way to stop 2019-nCoV’s spread is to limit transmission by identifying infected individuals as quickly as possible and isolating them for treatment before they can infect others.

If they develop any symptoms, they should be isolated and treated until laboratory testing can be done to determine if they have 2019-nCoV.

Those screened positive should still undergo laboratory testing for confirmation.

However, had they been used for first-line screening with confirmatory laboratory testing done on those found positive, they could have enabled more infections to be detected quickly and drastically reduced the number of patients needing laboratory testing.