Coronavirus outbreak can be stopped -- but it would require total shutdown for 14 days: scientists

The coronavirus outbreak can be ended -- relatively quickly -- but only through extreme social distancing, according to scientists.

The contagion can be contained by identifying and stopping individual outbreaks, but that requires widespread testing and rigorous tracing of contacts by infected people, reported the New York Times.

"If it were possible to wave a magic wand and make all Americans freeze in place for 14 days while sitting six feet apart, epidemiologists say, the whole epidemic would sputter to a halt," wrote Donald McNeil Jr. for the Times.

The virus would die out on contaminated surfaces, and it would become evident who was infected because almost everyone shows symptoms within two weeks, and asymptomatic cases could be detected through universal testing.

However, almost the exact opposite has happened so far.

Testing remains scarce, and President Donald Trump is reportedly considering calling for an end to extreme social distancing soon in an effort to reboot the economy.

Those same mistakes doomed Italy's response to the virus, and that country still hasn't gotten a handle on its fatalities.

China, on the other hand, shut down Wuhan to contain the epidemic, and other regions stepped in to help by sending 40,000 medical workers.

That's what must happen to help overwhelmed cities like New York and Seattle, but that will require social distancing to prevent the virus from spreading into other areas.