An infection by a coronavirus belonging to the same family of that responsible for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has been reported in the United Kingdom. A 49 years old man from Qatari with a travel history to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been admitted to an intensive care unit in Doha, Qatar, on 7 September, with symptoms of acute respiratory syndrome with renal failure. He has been transferred to the UK on 11 September, where the Health Protection Agency confirmed the presence of a novel coronavirus, whose sequence was 99.5% similar to that responsible of a previous fatal case reported earlier this year in a 60 year-old Saudi national.
Given that coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause different kinds of diseases, from the common cold to the SARS, WHO is currently trying to gather further information about these two cases and did not recommended any travel restrictions.
A new coronavirus found in UK
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Epidemic: from reality to fantasy
di Luca Morandi
Comparing the Covid-19 pandemic with two pandemics from literature: “The White Plague” by Frank Herbert and “Station 11” by Emily St. John Mandel
Epidemics is an often recurring theme in world literature, where authors share with us their realistic and unrealistic version of them. I recently read two books with global plagues in them: “The White Plague” by Herbert (1982) and “Station 11” by St. John Mandel (2014). These books came to mind at the outbreak of the new coronavirus epidemics, and I was reminded of the traits of their own epidemics and how puzzled they had left me. I will not compare these three diseases scientifically, as that would be impossible.