Coronavirus outbreak may be a pandemic

The coronavirus outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, is on track to become a global pandemic, top infectious disease experts tell The Times.

Here’s the latest on the outbreak, which has now killed at least 360 people, mostly in China, and prompted many countries to suspend flights to China and deny entry to visitors departing from or transiting through the Chinese mainland.

We also have an in-depth report from Wuhan on how Chinese officials put secrecy ahead of transparency in the early days of the crisis, and a look at the desperate search for treatment at the city’s overcrowded hospitals.

Details: There are 17,000 confirmed infections so far, but some epidemiological models estimate that the real number of cases is 100,000 or more. That’s an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw when SARS and MERS emerged, although the new virus has a lower mortality rate.