Introduction
Twenty-seven patients in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China were reported to have pneumonia of an unknown cause on December 31st, 2019 and were subsequently reported to have a novel coronavirus infection caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). After the announcement of 41 confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Wuhan City, China on January 11th, infected patients were identified in Thailand on January 13th and in Japan on January 16th. More cases were confirmed in some areas of China outside Wuhan, including Beijing and Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province on January 20th, and the number of confirmed cases has continued to rise. Moreover, there have been reports of secondary transmission from China and countries including Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam into Korea [1].
In Korea, 28 confirmed cases of COVID-19 had been reported as of February 14th, since the first case was confirmed on January 20th, 2020. Of these, 16 were cases imported into the country (57.1%) and 10 were believed to be secondary cases of infections originating in Korea; in the other 2 cases, the route of transmission remained undetermined.
The initial symptoms of COVID-19 are known to be respiratory symptoms such as coughing, in association with fevers, but the disease epidemiology remains largely unknown. To treat new infections and prevent further transmission, it is necessary to analyze and share epidemiological data on the cases reported to date [2].