Turn on the news and you'll likely hear about a new, sometimes deadly, strain of a virus that reportedly originated in Wuhan, China, and is spreading throughout the world quickly. The latest news updates say that the outbreak may be linked to bats that were served in bat soup–a soup that is made and served with a bat. The bat soup was available at the Wuhan open-air market, where the virus is believed to have originated before the market was shut down to prevent further contagion.
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The new virus strain is called 2019-nCoV, which means "2019 novel coronavirus," but many are simply referring to it as the Wuhan coronavirus. Other coronavirus strains you may have heard of are MERS and SARS. Coronaviruses come from animals and aren't usually caught by humans, but sometimes the coronavirus mutates and is transmitted from animals to humans, and then humans keep passing it on to other humans. That appears to be what is happening with the Wuhan coronavirus.
On Tuesday, January 21, a case of the Wuhan coronavirus was confirmed in Washington state. Then on Friday, January 24, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that a second case of the Wuhan coronavirus in the United States was identified in Chicago, Illinois. Knowing that it has made its way to the US is scary, but let's not panic. Instead, let's learn more and find out how we can protect ourselves and our families.