Science

The spread of a deadly respiratory virus has prompted the authorities to limit travel in cities in central China, including Wuhan, where the disease was first found last month. It has since spread to at least four other countries. The outbreak comes just before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday on Friday, as […]

A second patient in the United States has been found to be infected with the Wuhan coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Friday. The patient is a woman in her 60s who had traveled to Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the outbreak — and returned to Chicago on Jan. 13. […]

Cities large and small have already renegotiated, including Pittsburgh, which got an extra decade to reduce its overflows; Louisville, Ky., which got five additional years; and St. Louis, Mo., which also got an extra five years. Chicopee, Mass., got an extra eight. Akron, Ohio, has already renegotiated its original 2009 agreement twice, in 2016 and […]

The death toll jumps as millions are caught up in lockdown. The authorities drastically expanded a travel lockdown in central China on Thursday, essentially penning in more than 22 million residents to contain a deadly virus that is overwhelming hospitals and fueling fears of a pandemic. The new limits — abruptly decreed ahead of the […]

The spread of a deadly respiratory virus has prompted the authorities to limit travel in cities in central China, including Wuhan, where the disease was first found last month. It has since spread to at least four other countries. The outbreak comes just before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday on Friday, as […]

Chinese authorities have encouraged people in the city of Wuhan to wear surgical masks in public to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus. The question is: do they work? Many infectious disease specialists say the cheap disposable masks, which cover the nose and mouth, may help prevent the spread of infections if they […]

Less than a month after the first few cases of a new respiratory illness were reported in Wuhan, China, travelers have carried the virus to at least four other countries, including the United States. More than 500 people are known to have been infected, at least 17 have died — and the world is bracing […]

The infants and children huddled in the stone boathouses. The women pressed in next to them. The men crowded in last. They’d all fled Herculaneum on August 24, 79 A.D. as Mount Vesuvius rained destruction on the city, as it did Pompeii and other Roman settlements near the Bay of Naples. While Pompeii was consumed […]

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed 198 confirmed cases in Wuhan. Researchers found that 22 percent had direct exposure to the meat market, and 32 percent had contact with people who had a fever or respiratory disease. But roughly half had neither been to the market nor had contact with anyone who […]

The SARS disaster was supposed to drag China into a new era of openness and responsibility. The deadly disease rippled across the world 17 years ago, abetted by a Chinese government that covered up its spread. As the scope of it became clear, China’s journalists, intellectuals and other critics helped shame Beijing into opening up […]