(This post has been updated; read to the end.)
Holidays. It never fails.
Today, while the United States has been largely off-line following our Thanksgiving holiday (and while Northern Europe was on its way to the pub for Friday evening revelry), the World Health Organization announced four new cases of the novel coronavirus that caused a great deal of worry immediately before the October hajj season. (Earlier posts here and here.)
In its bulletin, released by the WHO’s Global Alert and Response team (GOAR), the agency said:
- Four additional laboratory-confirmed cases have been identified; one of the four has died.
- One case is in Qatar, the location of one of the original two cases earlier this year.
- Three of the new cases, including the dead person, are in Saudi Arabia, site of the other original case (who also died).
- Two of the three Saudi cases, including the dead person, are members of the same family.
- In that family, two other people have also fallen ill, and one has died. The man who recovered showed no laboratory evidence of infection with the novel coronavirus. Analysis of the case of the person who died is continuing.