Claim: Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, Target and Costco “have not had any reported (coronavirus) cases in the news.”
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Coronavirus
text: 2013, a case of contamination from human to human in France was confirmed by the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. In addition, cases of person-to-person transmission have been reported by the Ministry of Health in Tunisia. Two confirmed cases seem to have caught the disease from their late father, who became ill after a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. By Oct. 30 2013, there were 124 cases and 52 deaths in Saudi Arabia. After the Dutch Erasmus Medical Centre sequenced the virus, the virus was given a new name, Human Corona Virus-Erasmus Medical Centre (HCoV-EMC). The final

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
text: and were therefore delaying the development of diagnostic tests. Erasmus MC responded that the patent application did not restrict public health research into MERS coronavirus, and that the virus and diagnostic tests were shipped—free of charge—to all that requested such reagents. There are a number of mapping efforts focused on tracking MERS coronavirus. On 2 May 2014, the Corona Map was launched to track the MERS coronavirus in realtime on the world map. The data is officially reported by WHO or the Ministry of Health of the respective country. HealthMap also tracks case reports with inclusion of news and social

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: man from the Orlando area, has been reported, and a third Illinois man is as yet asymptomatic but has tested positive for a past infection with the healthcare worker from Indiana. The latter case is the first human-to-human transmission in the United States. On 28 May 2014, the CDC announced that the third person who was found positive for the virus was not infected. The announcement came after a further laboratory analysis by CDC indicating that the person was never infected with the virus. 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak Since 2012, an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome
text: pneumonia and acute renal failure. After routine diagnostics failed to identify the causative agent, Zaki contacted Ron Fouchier, a leading virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center (EMC) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for advice. Fouchier sequenced the virus from a sample sent by Zaki. Fouchier used a broad-spectrum "pan-coronavirus" real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method to test for distinguishing features of a number of known coronaviruses (such as OC43, 229R, NL63, and SARS-CoV), as well as for RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), a gene conserved in all coronaviruses known to infect humans. While the screens for known coronaviruses were all negative, the

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: was referred to the RITM last 4 July 2015. Another person, who was also showing symptoms, was placed in isolation after he had close contact with the said patient; eight others, who also had contacted with the patient, were identified. DOH is in the process of tracking all the people whom the patient had contacted with. The first known case of a previously unknown coronavirus was identified in a 60-year-old Saudi Arabian man with acute pneumonia, who died of renal failure in June 2012. As of 12 May 2013, two more deaths have been reported in the al-Ahsa region of

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: of unknown origin. Of the six, two died. All the cases were reported to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). After the September identification of a novel CoV strain, a retroactive analysis of the hospital workers was performed. Epidemiologists discovered the Jordan cases. Using stored laboratory samples for all six, it was found that samples from the two patients who had died tested positive for nCoV. On 24 April 2014, a 25-year-old male was found positive for the coronavirus. He had history of exposure to camels and had consumed camel milk. The Ministry of Health and Medical

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: a nurse who came in contact with the deceased patient are suspected to have contracted the disease. The victim's son-in-law is also reported to have been infected. According to Dr. Gooya, the infection of 1 out of the 3 suspected patients is confirmed and more tests are under way to determine the situation of the other two patients. On 7 May 2013, a case was confirmed in Nord departement of France in a man who had previously traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. On 12 May 2013, in a case of human to human transmission, a man previously hospitalized in

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
text: similar cases appeared in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Additional cases were noted, with deaths associated, and rapid research and monitoring of this novel coronavirus began. It is not certain whether the infections are the result of a single zoonotic event with subsequent human-to-human transmission, or if the multiple geographic sites of infection represent multiple zoonotic events from a common unknown source. A study by Ziad Memish of Riyadh University and colleagues suggests that the virus arose sometime between July 2007 and June 2012, with perhaps as many as 7 separate zoonotic transmissions. Among animal reservoirs, CoV has a large genetic

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: with confirmed cases of a SARS-like virus. The delays in obtaining data and absence of basic information (which would usefully include: sex, age, other medical conditions and smoking status) have been noted and decried by Dr. Margaret Chan and in Pro-Med comments on numerous briefings. At the annual meeting of the world’s health ministers, Dr. Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, said the virus was now her “greatest concern.” On 28 May 2013, the Saudi Ministry of Health reported five more cases of MERS-CoV. The cases have been "recorded among citizens in the Eastern Region, ranging in age from

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome
text: care worker who had been in Saudi Arabia a week earlier, and was reported to be in good condition. A second patient who also traveled from Saudi Arabia was reported in Orlando, Florida on 12 May 2014. On 14 May 2014, officials in the Netherlands reported the first case has appeared. On Saturday, 17 May 2014, a man from Illinois who was a business associate of the first U.S. case (he had met and shook hands with the Indiana health care worker) tested positive for the MERS coronavirus, but has not, as of yet, displayed symptoms (others are probably also,

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
text: camel strains are intermixed suggesting multiple transmission events. The first confirmed case was reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Egyptian virologist Dr. Ali Mohamed Zaki isolated and identified a previously unknown coronavirus from the man's lungs. Dr. Zaki then posted his findings on 24 September 2012 on ProMED-mail. The isolated cells showed cytopathic effects (CPE), in the form of rounding and syncytia formation. A second case was found in September 2012, a 49-year-old male living in Qatar presented with similar flu symptoms, and a sequence of the virus was nearly identical to that of the first case. In November 2012,

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: said virus. The Evangelista Medical Hospital in San Pedro, Laguna, the facility where the patient was first admitted, was temporarily closed by DOH for fourteen days. On 17 February 2015, all those who had exposure or had contact with the said nurse were tested negative of the said virus. On 6 March 2015, The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed three Filipino female healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia who were infected with MERS-CoV. On 6 July 2015, DOH confirmed the second detected case of MERS-CoV in the country. The patient who had contracted the virus was from the Middle East and

title: SARS coronavirus
text: as human SARS victims. In late May 2003, studies from samples of wild animals sold as food in the local market in Guangdong, China, found the SARS coronavirus could be isolated from masked palm civets ("Paguma" sp.), but the animals did not always show clinical signs. The preliminary conclusion was the SARS virus crossed the xenographic barrier from palm civet to humans, and more than 10,000 masked palm civets were killed in Guangdong Province. Virus was also later found in raccoon dogs ("Nyctereuteus" sp.), ferret badgers ("Melogale" spp.), and domestic cats. In 2005, two studies identified a number of SARS-like

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: and from that family at least one additional person presented similar symptoms but tested negative for the novel coronavirus. On 21 February 2013, WHO stated that there had been 13 laboratory-confirmed cases, 6 cases (4 fatal) from Saudi Arabia, 2 cases (both fatal) from Jordan, 2 cases from Qatar, and 3 from the UK. In March 2013, the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health reported the death of a 39-year-old man, the 15th case and 9th death reported to WHO. On 2 May 2013, the Saudi Ministry of Health announced five people died and two other people were in critical condition

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: Saudi Arabia. In the latest cluster of infections, 15 cases had been confirmed, and nine of those patients had died. Ten of the 22 people who died and 22 of 44 cases reported were in Saudi Arabia. An unconfirmed case in another Saudi citizen, for which no clinical information was available, was also reported around this time. On 22 September 2012, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) announced that the two cases involving Saudi citizens, caused by what they termed a "rare pattern of coronavirus," had both proven fatal. Two of the Saudi Arabia cases were from the same family

title: Coronavirus
text: one discovered the virus first and has the right to name it. Early in 2005, a research team at the University of Hong Kong reported finding a fifth human coronavirus in two patients with pneumonia. They named it Human coronavirus HKU1. In September 2012, a sixth new type of coronavirus was identified, initially called Novel Coronavirus 2012, and now officially Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The World Health Organisation accordingly issued a global alert. The WHO update on 28 September 2012 said that the virus did not seem to pass easily from person to person. However, on May 12,

title: Coronavirus
text: of a vaccine against the disease "since [the spike protein] appears to be recognized by the immune system of the host." Following the high-profile publicity of SARS outbreaks, there has been a renewed interest in coronaviruses among virologists. For many years, scientists knew about only two human coronaviruses (HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43). The discovery of SARS-CoV added a third human coronavirus. By the end of 2004, three independent research labs reported the discovery of a fourth human coronavirus. It has been named NL63, NL, and the New Haven coronavirus by different research groups. The three labs are still arguing over which

title: 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
text: deteriorated despite every effort and full supportive treatment." As of April 2014, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported a total of 4 cases in the United Kingdom, 3 of which were fatalities. As of July 2015 there has been 2 suspected cases of the disease On 2 May 2014, the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed the first diagnosis of MERS-CoV in the United States in Indiana. The man diagnosed was a healthcare worker who had been in Saudi Arabia a week earlier, and was reported to be in good condition. Another case, a Florida

title: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
text: to belong to the same species by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Strains: The virus grows readily on Vero cells and LLC-MK2 cells. The receptor for this virus is CD26 (dipeptidyl peptidase 4). Saudi officials had not given permission for Dr. Zaki, the first isolator of the human strain, to send a sample of the virus to Fouchier and were angered when Fouchier claimed the patent on the full genetic sequence of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus. The editor of "The Economist" observed, "Concern over security must not slow urgent work. Studying a deadly virus is

title: SARS coronavirus
text: coronaviruses in Chinese bats. Phylogenetic analysis of these viruses indicated a high probability that SARS coronavirus originated in bats and spread to humans either directly or through animals held in Chinese markets. The bats did not show any visible signs of disease, but are the likely natural reservoirs of SARS-like coronaviruses. In late 2006, scientists from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention of Hong Kong University and the Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention established a genetic link between the SARS coronavirus appearing in civets and humans, confirming claims that the disease had jumped across species. The