China's swift ID of a new virus is a win for public health

China’s announcement that researchers have quickly identified a microbe causing an outbreak responsible for one death and many hospitalizations is being seen as progress compared to the SARS outbreak in 2003. According to UTMB’s Jim LeDuc, “The biggest challenge in 2003 was the initial reluctance of China to explain what was going on.” Since that time, China has opened its first biosafety level 4 lab in Wuhan, and many of its scientists have trained with LeDuc in the Galveston National Laboratory.