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The surge in incidences, after the World Health Organization released guidance for diagnostic detection of the virus Friday, confirmed that the new pathogen is being transmitted among humans, and not just from animals to humans as was originally hoped.

Photo by NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images

But there are no reports yet of health-care workers being infected, a sign that the new virus is likely not as infectious as SARS, which killed almost 800 people 17 years ago.

“It is clear that there is at least some human-to-human transmission from the evidence we have, but we don’t have clear evidence that shows the virus has acquired the capacity to transmit among humans easily,” said Takeshi Kasai, the WHO’s regional director for the western pacific, in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Monday. “We need more information to analyze that.”

Countries across the world stepped up screening of incoming travellers ahead of the Chinese holiday that starts this Friday, a period of heightened travel for Chinese people. International airports in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco started screening from late Friday, joining cities in Asia that implemented surveillance measure days after the outbreak was reported on Dec. 31.

In Wuhan, health-care workers spread out across the city of 11 million, screening for symptoms among people on planes and at railway stations.

“This is a situation where we’re going to see additional cases all around the world as folks look for it more,” Nancy Messonnier, director of the U.S.’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday. “It’s highly plausible that there will be at least a case in the United States, and that’s the reason that we’re moving forward so quickly with this screening.”