China reported 17 new cases of infection by a new corona virus in Wuhan on January 19, including three in a severe condition. Those infected range from 30 to 79 years old. The virus has now infected 62 people in Wuhan, city authorities said, with eight in a severe condition, 19 cured and discharged from hospital, and the rest remaining in isolation receiving treatment. Cases were also reported in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen as hundreds of million of Chinese are traveling home to celebrate the Spring Festival on January 25. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the new virus is not SARS, and dismissed claims there has been a cover-up in the reporting of cases outside Wuhan. However, the South China Morning Post report that a doctor in Shanghai, where a suspected case has been reported, says his hospital is preparing staff to deal with a possible pneumonia outbreak. China’s National Health Commission reiterated that the outbreak was “preventable and controllable”, despite the fact that that the source of the virus has yet to be found and its path has yet to be fully mapped.

Three airports in major U.S. hubs will begin screening passengers arriving from Wuhan in response to the outbreak. The screening will start at airports in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced. Medical personnel will begin taking temperatures and asking about symptoms of passengers who travelled from the city. The illness was first reported in December. Fears of a more widespread outbreak arose last week when two cases were found in Thailand and one in Japan, carrying the same virus. At least a half-dozen countries in Asia, including Thailand and Japan, have started screening incoming airline passengers from central China.

Over the next few weeks, some 5,000 passengers are likely to be screened in the U.S., said Dr Martin Cetron, Director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine. The chance for an epidemic in the US is deemed low, the officer at the CDC said, and the agency’s response is preventive. The CDC is deploying about 100 experts to the three airports. Roughly 60,000 to 65,000 people a year travel from Wuhan to the U.S. New York and San Francisco are the only two cities that have direct flights from Wuhan. Those passengers arriving in Los Angeles are on connecting flights.

More than 40 cases of the newly identified coronavirus have been confirmed in Asia, including two deaths – at least one involving a previous medical condition. Most of the patients are believed to have contracted the virus from exposure to animals to a specific seafood and meat market in Wuhan, but it is no increasingly likely that the disease can also spread from person to person. Chinese authorities said that no illnesses were reported among several hundred health care workers caring for the patients, but a recent case in China was a patient who did not go to the markets, the South China Morning Post reports.

A different coronavirus caused the SARS outbreak in 2003, which originated in China and was spread to other countries by travelers, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing nearly 800.

Imperial College London has published a 4-page report on the outbreak which can be downloaded in PDF here.