Since mid-January, the name on the lips of increasing numbers of TV news announcers and commentators has been "Bukan," which is how the Chinese city of Wuhan is pronounced in Japanese.
The contagion that is believed to have originated from that city, COVID-19, is said to bear close similarities to SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), first identified in southern China in 2003, and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), which broke out in 2012. Based on the timing and first victims of the outbreak, it's believed the new coronavirus jumped species from a wild animal, possibly a bat, sold at Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The market was shut down by authorities on New Year's Day.
Despite efforts to quarantine most of Hubei province and curtail nationwide travel during the Lunar New Year holiday, the epidemic of shingata birusu haien (new viral pneumonia) has by now spread to most of China's provinces and killed more than 1,000 people.