Health officials globally, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are closely monitoring the swiftly evolving outbreak of a novel coronavirus. The virus, SARS-CoV-2, causes coronavirus disease 2019—which is abbreviated as COVID-19.

First detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province in China with known cases dating back to early December 2019, there are now COVID-19 illnesses identified worldwide. WHO declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” on Jan. 30. The next day, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II declared a national public health emergency. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) are studying COVID-19 to find new diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines.

Imported cases in travelers have been detected in the United States and there has been person-to-person coronavirus transmission between close contacts. Officials are preparing for an emerging public health threat, though the risk of community spread is considered low at this time, according to the CDC.

TMC leaders are coordinating to address the outbreak in the Houston area.

March 2, 2020: Five people have died from COVID-19 in the United States and all were patients at a Seattle-area nursing home, which has stoked concern in Washington State.

The number of global coronavirus infections is moving closer to 90,000 cases with more than 3,000 confirmed deaths. While China has mitigated the spread of the virus within its borders, the virus appears to be spreading in the United States.

According to health officials, there are more than 90 confirmed cases of coronavirus nationwide reported in at least 10 states: Arizona, Washington, California, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York, Florida, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Oregon.

There are no reported cases of the coronavirus in Houston; however, heightened concerns over the potential spread in the city led organizers of IHS Markit’s CERAWeek, a weeklong oil and gas conference with expected attendance by international guests from more than 80 countries, to cancel the event scheduled for March 9 through March 13.

“Over the last few days concern has mounted rapidly about the COVID-19 coronavirus. The World Health Organization raised the threat level on Friday, the U.S. government canceled a summit meeting scheduled in Las Vegas, an increasing number of companies are instituting travel bans and restrictions, border health checks are becoming more restrictive and there is growing concern about large conferences with people coming from different parts of the world,” an IHS Markit statement said.

CERAWeek has convened in Houston for more than 35 years and is slated to return in 2021, a statement from Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. He noted that the organization also cancelled two other international conferences this month in New Orleans and Long Beach, California.

In addition, a group of staff members and students at Rice University were placed inself-quarantine on Saturday after a researcher was possibly exposed to the coronavirus while traveling abroad, according to the university. — Shanley Pierce

February 27, 2020: Coronavirus has spread to every continent except Antarctica, with Brazil announcing the first case in South America on Wednesday—one day after U.S. health officials warned of a when-not-if “community spread” of the illness. This week, the White House unveiled a $2.5 billion plan to fight coronavirus, including more than $1 billion to fund development of a vaccine.

“We have no cases in the city or anywhere in southeast Texas,” said David Persse, M.D., the City of Houston’s public health authority.

The Houston Health Department (HHD) is part of the CDC’s Laboratory Response Network (LRN) of labs which can react to biological and chemical threats as well as other public health emergencies. The city lab, which handles specimens from surrounding counties and is among 10 LRN sites statewide, will be able to test for coronavirus when kits are received from the CDC, Persse said.

In addition, HHD has been working with Harris County Public Health (HCPH) to educate officials in schools and major employers about how to handle people who return to Houston from overseas travel.

“We are working with the hospitals with their planning on how they are going to handle their surge capacity in the event we have lots of folks either coming to the hospital wanting to be evaluated or people who are actually sick enough to be admitted,” Persse said. “The hospitals are operating near capacity to begin with.”

This month, Persse and HCPH Executive Director Umair Shah, M.D., MPH, met with officials from the five largest Houston-area hospital systems and local medical schools to discuss testing, public messaging and surge capacity for hospitals. Persse and Shah also convened public health officials from across the region at UTHealth’s School of Public Health and reached physicians by addressing a meeting of the Harris County Medical Society. — Cindy George