The fatality ratio for COVID-19 has been much lower than SARS of 2003 , but transmissions have been noticeably higher , as well as the death toll .
On 12 January , the World Health Organization ( WHO ) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City , Hubei Province , China , who was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.