Table 1.

Comparison of the outbreak from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and 2019-nCov/coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) respiratory syndrome. CoV, coronavirus.

	SARS	MERS	COVID-19
Timeline	November 2002 to July 2003	June 2012 to present	December 2019 to present
Location of first detection	Guangdong, China	Jeddah, Saudi Arabia	Wuhan, China
Animal origin	Civet	Camel	Non-aquatic animal (?)
Confirmed cases	8096	2494	12 404
Fatality	744 (10%)	858 (37%)	259 (∼2%)
Global impact	26 countries	27 countries	26 countries
Date of virus identification	April 2003	October 2012	January 7, 2020