Explained: Coronavirus is here to stay, will it become a pandemic?

New Delhi, Jan 31: As the death toll in China's novel coronavirus outbreak on Friday climbed to 213 with the number of confirmed cases totalling to 9,692, countries are now barring infected citizens from returning their own homeland.

Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) as the outbreak continues to spread outside Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the virus.

With information changing so quickly and every news report about the virus seeming to raise the stakes, one big question arises here is whether the coronavirus is here to stay? Well, if the efforts to contain coronavirus fail, then there are high chances that it would be deadly pandemic. If the virus can be spread by people who are infected but don't have symptoms, it will be more difficult to control its spread.

So what is the difference between pandemic and endemic?

A pandemic refers to worldwide spread of a new disease - one that has spread over several countries or continents affecting a large number of people. A pandemic is when there is an outbreak that affects most of the world. The term endemic is used when virus circulates within a geographic location that is existing perpetually.

Is the virus likely to change?

Currently, the virus has caused severe illness, and death, mainly in older people, particularly those with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

According to some researchers, they are worried that the new China coronavirus spreads, the pathogen could mutate so it can spread more efficiently, or become more likely to cause disease in young people.

''In situations where a virus jumps from one animal host to another species, which is probably how the new coronavirus began to infect humans, there might be a selection pressure to improve survival in the new host, but that rarely, if ever, has any effect on human disease or the virus's transmissibility, Kristian Andersen, an infectious-disease researcher at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, said. While a study SARS shows that primate cells found in the virus during the 2003 outbreak probably reduced its virulence.

How many people will it kill?

Well, it is difficult to calculate the proportion of infected people who will die during the middle of the outbreak. However, with 213 deaths so far out of nearly 10,000 infections, the new coronavirus has a death rate of 2-3%. This is significantly lower than SARS, which had killed around 10 per cent of the people it infected.