Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), as denoted by the World Health Organization, also known as Wuhan coronavirus or Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus, is a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA coronavirus first reported in 2019 and genomically sequenced after nucleic acid testing on a positive patient sample in a patient with pneumonia during the 2019-2020 Wuhan pneumonia outbreak. The virus is at least 70% similar in genetic sequence to SARS-CoV, the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome.

On 9 January 2020, the first 2019-nCoV-related death occurred in a 61-year-old man in Wuhan. On 16 January 2020, Chinese authorities announced the death of a 69-year-old man in Wuhan, the second death in China and in the outbreak.

Because some degree of human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out, the WHO warned that a wider outbreak could occur. As of 17 January 2020, 44 total infections have been reported; 42 in China, 1 in Japan and 1 in Thailand.

A situation summary from the US Centers for Disease Control is available here.

This question asks: How many human infections of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) will be estimated to occur before 2021?

Resolution should be the total global number of human infections that occured before January 1 2021, estimated by (in decreasing order of priority):

• The World Health Organisation.
• The Center for Disease Control.
• The United Nations.
• Credible press reports. If there are several press reports judged credible by a Metaculus admin, resolution should be the median of the published estimates.