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Scientists are increasingly concerned about a new virus that has infected hundreds of people and can be deadly. The virus is a coronavirus, from the family that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. It causes a respiratory illness, can spread from person to person and emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December.

Here’s the latest news on the outbreak.

24 January 20:00 GMT — What you need to know about the virus

24 January 16:30 GMT — Second US infection

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on 24 January that a second person in the United States had been infected with the new coronavirus. A woman in her sixties returned to her home in Chicago, Illinois, on 13 January after visiting Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak began. She experienced symptoms a few days later. Doctors immediately suspected an infection with the coronavirus on the basis of her travel history. They admitted her to an isolation room and sent blood samples to the CDC’s laboratory. She remains in hospital but, in a press release, the CDC says that she is doing well.

The agency warns that there will probably be more US cases of the coronavirus in the coming weeks. But it adds: “The immediate risk of this new virus to the American public is believed to be low at this time.”

23 January 20:00 GMT — World Health Organization decides against emergency declaration

The World Health Organization (WHO) has decided not to declare the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency, it said on 23 January.

“At this time there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “That doesn’t mean it won't happen.”

The WHO committee that considered whether to declare a global emergency — the agency’s highest level of alarm — met for two days before issuing its verdict. The panel decided against the declaration in part because the virus’s rate of spread between humans remains unknown. “For now, it appears limited to family groups and health workers caring for infected patients,” Ghebreyesus said.

23 January 15:45 GMT — Scientists dismiss claim that snakes spread virus

Scientists are trying to identify the animals in which the epidemic probably began. In a controversial study published last night, a team of researchers in China claimed snakes were the culprit.

But many scientists are sceptical of this claim and say there is no proof that viruses such as those behind the outbreak can infect species other than mammals and birds. “Nothing supports snakes being involved,” says David Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow, UK.

23 January 15:00 GMT — Chinese authorities lock down Huanggang

A second city in China — Huanggang — is going into lockdown similar to that in Wuhan. Huanggang has a population of about 7 million people and is around 70 kilometres from Wuhan. Public bus and railway operations will be suspended from midnight, Reuters reports. A third city, nearby Ezhou, has shut its train stations.

23 January 04:00 GMT — Chinese government closes off Wuhan

Chinese authorities have suspended all travel in and out of Wuhan — the city at the centre of the outbreak, home to more than 11 million people — in an effort to control the worsening outbreak. Since 10 a.m. Chinese local time, planes and trains leaving the city have been suspended, and buses and the city’s subway have also stopped running.

The announcement is a considerable escalation in China’s response to the outbreak, but whether it will be effective is unclear, says Ian Mackay, a virologist at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. Although quarantining the city might help to curb the international spread of the virus, it won’t stop it from being transmitted between people in the city. Mackay worries that the authorities might have “just created a large cell-culture dish in which all these people will share the infection and create a lot more cases all stuck in Wuhan”.

Mackay also questions whether the city will be able to feed its citizens and manage the increasing number of people who have become sick with the virus, as well as with seasonal influenza, without the free flow of supplies and aid from outside the city. He says the lockdown could have a psychological effect on people.

22 January 20:00 GMT — World Health Organization delays decision on emergency declaration

The WHO has postponed a decision on whether to declare the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern”— a step it reserves for events that pose a risk to multiple countries and that requires a coordinated international response. The move follows a meeting of a committee organized to respond to the outbreak. The same committee will meet again on 23 January.

“This is an evolving and complex situation,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press conference after the meeting.

22 January 16:45 GMT — Five questions researchers have about China virus

Scientists around the world are racing to find out more about the coronavirus — including how it spreads and information about its genetic sequences. Researchers have already sequenced several strains of the virus taken from infected people. This information can help to reveal how easily the virus can pass between humans and whether the outbreak has the potential to persist. Researchers in China are also hoping to study whether drugs could be developed to fight the virus.

21 January 19:45 GMT — First US case confirmed

The United States has confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on 21 January. A 30-year-old man in Washington state has been diagnosed with the illness after a trip to China, making the United States the fifth country to report the disease — and the first outside Asia.

The man had been admitted to a hospital in Washington last week with pneumonia, but “is right now, very healthy”, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia, told reporters. He is under observation at the hospital.

The CDC says that the man did not have symptoms on his arrival in Seattle, Washington, but developed a fever on 16 January and sought treatment. A hospital in Washington state collected blood from the man and shipped it to the CDC, which identified the virus in the samples on 20 January. The CDC is now tracking down individuals who had contact with the man.

International airports in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco, California, have been screening arriving passengers for signs of coronavirus infection since 17 January. All three receive direct flights from Wuhan. The CDC says it will now expand the screening to airports in Atlanta and Chicago, Illinois. All travellers leaving Wuhan for the United States will be routed to one of the five airports that have screening programmes.

21 January — Researchers must share sequences

In an editorial, Nature says that researchers have a crucial role in publishing and sharing genome sequences. It also calls on China’s health authorities to continue reporting what they know and what more they are uncovering, and on the WHO to lead and coordinate the global response.

21 January — Chinese health workers infected

Infections have been confirmed in 15 health-care workers in Wuhan; scientists say this suggests that the virus is more adept at human-to-human transmission than was first thought. Previously, Chinese authorities and the WHO had said that there had been some limited cases of human-to-human transmission between family members, but that animals seemed to be the most likely source of the virus.

In response to the worsening outbreak, the World Health Organization has called a meeting on 22 January to decide whether to declare a public-health emergency.