Have died and there are more than 1,300 confirmed cases across the globe. The coronavirus has sent shockwaves through global markets. The state department is now telling americans in the clearest way possible, do not travel to china. The Defense Department is designating military bases across the country that could house a thousand quarantined patients. On friday u. S. Health officials declared the virus a Public Health emergency. There are squads of people who are going door to door dragging people from their apartments because theyre suspected of having the virus. The number of cases worldwide now topping 6,000. Over 90,000 cases. The new name, covid19, in u dea new deaths and new infections. Many experts say the death toll is being underestimated by as much as fourfold. So at the hong kong airport, theyre making an announcement now to maintain your personal hygiene and not to travel to wuhan, china, and just look around here. This is Hong Kong International airport. One of the busiest transport hubs in the world. Theres nobody here. The coronavirus has now spread to almost every continent on earth. Here in hong kong, its turned this crowded city into a ghost town. Although the overwhelming majority of people who contract the coronavirus survive, most with just mild cases, globally, it has claimed more than 3,000 lives and tens of thousands have been infected. And this could be just the beginning. To find out how serious this outbreak is, where it came from, and whats being done to contain it, i traveled to asia and washington, d. C. , to try to answer the most basic question. What happens when a disease that kills goes global . In this city of 7 million on the southern tip of mainland china, theyre taking all the precautions they can, but covid19 is already here. At hong kongs tunwan hospital, the doctors have been put on socalled dirty teams to deal with coronavirus patients. Its the front line in the fight against the disease. Cardiologist alfred wong was one of the first to volunteer. How do you get this . So how are people in your hospital getting this . So the roots of transmission of these viruses, all coronaviruses, they transmit through droplets. Does it have to go into your mouth or in your eyes membranes. If were wearing a mask, those droplets cannot pass through the mask into your mouth or nose and if you avoid messing around with your eyes, then youre probably safe. We have seen many cases of clustered infections. Within families or within groups of friends who pass on the virus to one another just within a mealtime. They have a lunch together or they have dinner together. One meal . Yes. And then they transmit the virus to one another because you dont wear mask during mealtimes. And its this level of infectiousness that means dr. Wong has to take extreme measures to make sure he doesnt become infected and spread the disease. When we are working, we are sort of separated from the rest of the department. We have our own office. We dont eat inside canteens. We do hide somewhere to eat. And after work we dont go home. Where where you staying . Im staying in a hotel near the hospital. Most of our colleague have children or old parents at home. Its basically the same thing for any one of us. I just reckon if this battle, indeed, lasts for months then sooner or later, every one of us will have to be involved in the team. Every one of them in a battle thats personal as well as professional. You have a wife. Yes. Shes pregnant. Yes, she is. Yeah. Its difficult, of course thats a lot of personal sacrifice. Raise your hand, ill be part of the dirty team, yes, my wife is how pregnant is she . Shes more than 33 weeks now. Shes almost at the end. Almost there, yeah. This is what we know so far about the coronavirus. Most people will be fine. The World Health Organization now believes the mortality rate from the coronavirus is 3. 4 of all it infects. But that overall average is somewhat misleading because how lethal this virus is depends a lot on who gets it. Most of the data comes from china. Based on their numbers, people with preexisting conditions are at a far greater risk. For example, the mortality rate for someone with no diagnosed preexisting conditions is less than 1 . And the risk goes up the older you get. Especially for those 70 or older. The World Health Organization has found that children are far less susceptible with very few of them even getting the virus at all. Just 2. 4 of all people who tested positive are under the age of 18. No one in the world has ever experienced this virus before. This is the first time this virus has begun to circulate. And it is showing, you know, very significant rates of infectiousness. Dr. Richard hatchett is leading an International Team of scientists to find a coronavirus vacci vaccine, working in labs in australia, europe, and the United States. Its a process that normally takes decades, but time is working against us. Our current goal, and this is an incredibly ambitious goal, but we have to set this for ourselves as a goal, to be able to have a vaccine within 12 to 18 months. Do you think thats realistic . I thing its going to be a big challenge. How is this different than the common cold . With the virus that has is that infectious, where there is no underlying population immunity, you would expect, perhaps, up to 60 or 67 of the population to become infected. The world population. Yes. Essentially. Thats billions of people. Its billions of people. New developments this evening in the coronavirus crisis. China experiencing the deadliest day of the outbreak yet. Scientists are racing to develop a vaccine. Growing concerns over the deadly coronavirus and the aggressive steps being taken to halt its spread. Were gaining new insights into the evolution of a coronavirus thanks to the work of a leading scientist who is studying the virus and the animals that probably transmitted it. How confident are you that this coronavirus came from bats like these . Im 90 certain that the virus originated in bats that are similar to this. Yes. Danielle anderson is a virus hunter with 20 years of field experience. Within days of the first outbreak, she and her team had identified the coronavirus. Why bats . So bats are interesting because they contain a lot of viruses. They host a lot of viruses but those viruses dont make the bats sick, but once the virus is shed out of the bats, they can make us sick. Shed out of a bat. How does a virus shed out of a bat into humans . If a bat pees or goes on any surface or directly on you or bat scratches you, then the virus can be transmitted that way. And once it made that jump from bats to humans, the virus could be here to stay. What does that mean for all of us . We have to work hard for a vaccine and learn to live with the virus and its i think its just going to become part of our life. Its something people are just going to get year after year. Until we have a vaccine, then thats the case. Next, well take you to the epicenter of the outbreak. Wuhan, china. And tell you how the Chinese Governments desire for secrecy may have allowed the virus to spread. mom were you planning on mowing the lawn today . [thunder] son no. burke seen it. Covered it. At farmers insurance, we know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. So call 1800 farmers to get a quote. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum looking to repair dry, damaged hair without weighing it down . Try pantene daily moisture renewal conditioner. Its colorsafe formula uses smart conditioners to microtarget damage helping to repair hair without weighing it down. 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The state department hasis urging travelers to avoid the chinese city of wuhan. Tonight, extreme measures to contain the virus. In wuhan, spraying disinfectant on buildings and cars. Wuhan, china, epicenter of the fastgrowing outbreak. Wuhan is a major city. Detroit of china. Auto manufacturers and manufacturing bases are based in wuhan. Theres constant travel in and out of wuhan. In december of 2019, everything changed. Thats when people started to show up at wuhans hospitals with severe flulike symptoms. Patients had difficulty breathing and pneumonia. An ominous pattern that got the attention of a 34yearold doctor. On december 30th he wrote to coworkers to warn them of what he believed was an outbreak of a new virus. He recommended that they wear protective equipment. He was just a very astute physician that noticed that there is an irregular pattern of pneumonia occurring in wuhan. Its always that Frontline Health care worker thats going to be the first person to notice there is Something Different and theyre going to report that up their chain of command. Joseph fehrer has worked all around the world tracking down deadly viruses. He knows they are like wildfires. Contain them quickly or it can be too late. The first few days of discovering a new virus are absolutely critical and the first step of diagnostics and getting a diagnostic up and running and finding out how many people actually have this, thats our way of determining how contagious this virus is, how widespread it is, how large the outbreak is. But that didnt happen during those crucial first days in wuhan. Instead of being commended for spotting a new outbreak, dr. Li was called in by police and forced to sign a letter stating his warning was an unfounded and illegal rumor. And even as more people became infected, china continued to downplay the severity of the outbreak. Chinese state media pumped out images of wuhan nurses wishing everyone a happy new year. Obviously, we would like it more if they were more open, more transparent, if they had septemb sent the letter immediately once they noticed something was out of the norm and knew. Instead of sounding the alarm about the outbreak of a new and potentially deadly disease, chinas oneparty state chose the opposite. It said the virus was not spreading from human to human and because of that it was under control. Back in hong kong, i went to meet a man whos a vocal opponent of chinas ruling communist party. Before the intervie begaw began coronavirus screening. Jimmy li is a media tycoon who believes the Chinese Government made a bad situation worse. If those doctors who initially discovered this virus were allowed to really tell the people instead of being punished by police, you know, saying that they were spreading rumors, maybe everything would have been contained. China is particularly susceptible to Infectious Diseases like covid19. The wet markets where wild animals are sold alongside meat and seafood massively increase the odds of a virus jumping from one species to another. Scientists believe this coronavirus outbreak originated in one of these wet markets in wuhan. The working theory is someone butchered a bat, came into contact with its blood or urine, and then touched his or her nose or mouth. We know bats harbor thousands of coronaviruses. We know there were a lot of bats being sold in this market, in particular. And we know that through historical precedent that butchering animals such as bats can cause everything from ebola to coronaviruses, et cetera. On january 1st, two days after dr. Lee tried to alert the authorities, the Chinese Government did close the citys wet market. They said it was for renovations. After a month of trying to downplay the outbreak, china switched gears. The coronavirus had become fatal, impossible to ignore, impossible to hide. China ease Top Health Official finally confirmed humantohuman spread. President xi jinping imposed wartime controls. A massive and unprecedented response. A thousandbed hospital was built in a week. Youd have a very difficult time doing that ourselves here in the United States. So i have to commend them on that. Elsewhere in the city, doortodoor temperature checks. Across china, those who refuse to comply with the new measures face the full authoritarian response. Chinas message to the world was the virus was under control and being contained. In an extraordinary move, the entire city of wuhan was locked down. No one allowed in or out. Everyone living in the city was put into isolation. The occasional food delivery from volunteers became the only contact with the outside world. I brought you something. Oh, cool. Supplies. Supplies. Coffee. Yes. Im running low. Its been five weeks ive been here. Youre the first human beings ive actually seen within this distance in five weeks. For steve mcclure, an american who teaches at wuhan university, the small gesture made a big difference. Were making an incredible sacrifice in wuhan. The volunteers are risking themselves to maintain connections between the people in our community. It was the largest quarantine in human history. Turning the streets of a mega city eerily silent. China effectively put millions of people under house arrest in an effort to limit transmission. It spreads from contact, human contact. Persontoperson, generally droplets, respiratory droplets. Dr. Anthony fauchi is one of the worlds foremost experts on viruses at the National Institutes for health. People sneeze and cough into their hands. Their shake hands with somebody. They open up a doorknob. Somebody else comes five minutes later. That seems like really intimate contact. Yeah. Yeah. People are continually coming into close contact with each other. One of the real frustrations when youre dealing with a respiratory virus thats spread in a highly efficient way. What about the surface . If i cough into my hands, touch a surface, how long will it live on the surface . You know, there is no it takes ten minutes or two hours or three hours. It varies. It varies on the temperature, the humidity, on whether the virus is in a little droplet of mucous or saliva or whether its a free virus. Its usually you could say measured in hours at most. Not weeks. Hours at most. Yeah. But the doctors, the nurses, directly treating infected patients are at a higher risk. Since theyre exposed to higher concentrations of the virus. In early january, dr. Li, the physician who had first spotted the new virus, was diagnosed with it. Less than a month later, he was dead. The doctor who tried to tell the world about a new disease became one of its victims. And, perhaps, even more concerning, chinas wartime controls hadnt worked. The coronavirus was spreading beyond wuhan. Dr. Lis rumors had become a Global Health emergency. India is on a high alert after the first coronavirus case. Another three australians have been diagnosed with the coronavirus infection. Belararubelarus, lithuania, netherlands, all reporting their first cases and less than an hour ago, mexico. When we come back, how do you stop a coronavirus thats so hard to spot . It. That chad really was raised by wolves . Which one is your mother . Thats her right there. Oh, gosh. No, i cant believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my Car Insurance with geico. Its really great. Well, im just so glad to have met your beautiful family. And we better be sitting down now. Believe it geico could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. Ncan it one up spaghetti night . Cleaning power of liquid. It sure can. Really . Can it one up breakfast in bed . Yeah, for sure. Thanks, boys. What about that . Uhh, yep it can . 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Because the tiny city state that had been caught off guard by epidemics in the past was now poised to respond. Havent seen anything like this for a long time. Danielle anderson is leading a Coronavirus Task force at this facility on the outskirts of central singapore. The actual virus is housed in this secure facility, so youll see theres a lot of layers we have to go through. Layers of protection because if what lies inside somehow got out, it could be disastrous. So we took every precaution possible before entering the most sensitive areas of the compound. Now were going into the main lab and inside this lab here is where we keep the live virus. This is the most secure lab that we have in singapore. And the coronavirus is in here. The coronavirus is inside here. We have a pure strain of that exact virus. And that would be the most contagious form. Its the most the purest form of the virus. Absolutely. So this is the most contagious and very pure stock. So we definitely want that virus behind all of these closed doors. Danielle anderson and her fellow scientists are working around the clock inspecting and dissecting the new virus. Figuring out just how to fight it. What surprised you about this virus . The spread of this is really, really surprising. How quickly and how far w