All about the Coronavirus

This episode of 16 Minutes on the news from a16z is all about the recent coronavirus outbreak -- or rather, a new type of coronavirus called 2019-nCoV for 2019 novel coronavirus. Since it's an ongoing and fast-developing news cycle, we take a quick snapshot for where we are, what we know, and what we don't know, and discuss the vantage point of where tech comes in. Topics covered include:

• definition of a virus, categories of coronaviruses
• origins and spread
• how this stacks up so far against SARS and MERS
• speed of sequencing, implications of genomic info
• speed of information sharing
• R0 ("r-naught"/"nought") and what it measures
• different ways to think about how bad a given epidemic is
• current moves and treatments

Our a16z guest is Judy Savitskaya on the bio team, in conversation with Sonal Chokshi.

Link sources or background readings for this episode:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) + types
• World Health Organization (in the United Nations) -- situation report #6, January 26

Other background readings / pieces mentioned in this episode:

• "Scientists are moving at record speed to create new coronavirus vaccines--but they may come too late", Jon Cohen, Science (AAAS), January 27
• "Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China", The Lancet, January 24
• "Discovery of a novel coronavirus associated with the recent pneumonia outbreak in humans and its potential bat origin", bioRxiv, January 2 *note - preprint, NOT peer reviewed*
• "The deceptively simple number sparking coronavirus fears", Ed Yong, The Atlantic, January 28 *this appeared AFTER this episode was recorded, so sharing here as additional reading only*

image: CDC