We aren't completely unprepared for the Wuhan coronavirus now spreading around the world. Just ask the people who work in Tyvek suits and respirators, such as epidemiologist Timothy Sheahan of the University of North Carolina.
He has been studying coronaviruses since 2003, shortly after a similar virus triggered the SARS outbreak, which also started in China and spread to North America. In the end, it killed fewer than 800 people but raised legitimate fears about a global pandemic.
Now there's a drug called remdesivir which Sheahan and his colleagues at UNC, in collaboration with Gilead Sciences, have been testing in a level 3 containment facility for its ability to fight a whole range of coronaviruses — so named for their spiky shape, which resembles a crown.