The new pneumonia was first discovered on December 29, 2019, when the health departments of Hubei Province and Wuhan City received a report of an aggregated unexplained pneumonia case at a local hospital with four patients who were all employees of the South China Seafood Wholesale Market; on the 30th, the health departments of Hubei Province and Wuhan City launched an investigation and case search; on the 31st, the National Health and Wellness Commission and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention intervened in the investigation and response, and on the same day the Wuhan municipal government released information on the disease outbreak to the community.
On January 8, the novel coronavirus was confirmed as the pathogen of the outbreak.