New coronavirus has killed one, hospitalized another.
SARS was the Viral Pandemic That Wasn't, thanks largely to a global effort to corral the disease before it could spread too far into the general population. Much like the Y2K Disaster which was averted thanks to millions of hours of work by dedicated computer professionals, SARS was turned away by alert and focused medical staff. In the end, SARS infected about 8,000 people, and killed about 800. Without quick global action and coordination, it would have been far worse.
Better still, the global medical community clearly learned from the experience. The latest SARS-like virus has been identified after only two victims were identified. The first was a 60 year-old Saudi Arabian man who died in England earlier this year. In hindsight, the virus which killed him was recently identified as a match with the virus that currently has a Qatari man fighting for his life in an English hospital.
Both of the victims had recently traveled to Saudi Arabia, which leads the World Health Organization (WHO) to believe that Saudi Arabia is the reservoir for this new coronavirus. The virus is previously unidentified in humans, and is remarkably similar to SARS.
