[custom_adv] Despite draconian quarantining, the virus, provisionally known as 2019-nCoV, is spreading. Several countries, including the UK, are considering evacuating nationals from the hot zone. [custom_adv] It is now time for the World Health Organization to call a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). [custom_adv] The revised timeline on when the virus began circulating comes courtesy of two papers in The Lancet medical journal, which reveal other worrying details. One sets out the clinical data on the first 41 laboratory-confirmed patients. [custom_adv] Patient zero, who fell ill on Dec 1, had no link to the seafood market in Wuhan that is widely assumed to be the source of the outbreak. [custom_adv] A further 13 of those 41 cases showed no link either. It is possible that the virus began circulating earlier than December. [custom_adv] A “grave situation” for China, as President Xi Jinping describes the epidemic, is a grave situation for the world. [custom_adv] A fifth of the global population is now potentially exposed to a highly transmissible, currently incurable and potentially fatal respiratory virus. [custom_adv] A fifth of the global population is now potentially exposed to a highly transmissible, currently incurable and potentially fatal respiratory virus.