How Long Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Last? Experts Are Scrambling to Find Out

As a novel coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV continues to spread throughout China and to countries across the world, the big question is: How long will the outbreak last—and how bad will it get?

While some doctors have made predictions and outbreaks of similar coronaviruses like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) provide clues, the short, if unsatisfying, answer is that no one is exactly sure.