The images of the current outbreak of the new coronavirus have so far been very human: air travelers wearing masks, tourists stranded on cruise ships, medical workers wearing protective suits.

But new images of the virus show us what it looks like up close.

These images were made using scanning and transmission electron microscopes at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' [Rocky Mountain Labs] in Hamilton, Mont. NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Emmie de Wit, chief of NIAID's Molecular Pathogenesis Unit, provided the virus samples. Microscopist Elizabeth Fischer produced the images, and the lab's visual medical arts office digitally colorized the images.

NIAID notes that the images look rather similar to previous coronavirus MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, which emerged in 2012) and the original SARS-CoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, which emerged in 2002).

"That is not surprising: The spikes on the surface of coronaviruses give this virus family its name – corona, which is Latin for 'crown,' and most any coronavirus will have a crown-like appearance," the institute explains in a blog post.

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization formally named the disease caused by the new coronavirus: COVID-19.

There have been more than 47,000 laboratory-confirmed cases so far and more than 1,300 deaths. Cases have been documented in 25 countries, but the vast majority are in China.

China's Hubei province expanded its criteria for identifying new coronavirus cases on Thursday, which led to a major spike in reported cases there. The province added a new category to its reporting: "clinical cases." That means patients will be counted if they exhibit all the symptoms — which include fever, cough and shortness of breath — but have either not been tested or tested negative for the virus itself.

That sudden spike, caused by the change in reporting, may complicate efforts to track the disease's progression in China.

For decades, Rocky Mountain Laboratory scientists [Dr. Vincent J. Munster (born 1973)] and Emmie de Wit have been honing the skills they would use in helping in this year's fight against a global pandemic. That scientific expertise didn't go unnoticed.

The married couple from Hamilton was recently selected as two of four recipients of the American Association for Advancement of Science’s Golden Goose Award. The award recognizes the benefits of federally-funded research by highlighting examples of studies that led to breakthroughs resulting in significant societal impacts.

The award’s focus this year was on a group of National Institutes of Health scientists who used their collective knowledge gained in studying other dangerous coronavirus outbreaks around the world to respond quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the couple works in separate RML labs, the common thread of their research involves investigating outbreaks. They work with animals to learn about viruses and then create tests to determine if vaccine candidates and treatments have the potential to work in humans.

They are among a small core of researchers who study coronaviruses. Before COVID-19 was even a blip on the radar screen, their work was unlocking mysteries about how the viruses operated and ways they could be treated.

At about the same time the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Wuhan, China last December, a study led by de Wit was published that showed the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir was effective in treating rhesus macaques infected with the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus.

By April, de Wit’s team showed that it also worked on the virus that caused COVID-19.

The federal Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency-use authorization for the drug to treat COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization in May.

Munster’s RML research team was one the first to investigate MERS in 2012 when it appeared in Arabian Desert camel handlers. They found that while camels wouldn’t get ill with the virus, they spread it effectively to humans.

Munster’s team is currently involved in several COVID-19 development programs, including the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that could be next in line for an emergency authorization.

The first doses of COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in Ravalli County this week. For that to happen so quickly, Munster said the stars needed to align just right.

“Surprised isn’t the right word for us that this has happened," he said. "We’re all aware of the new technologies that have been developed. Everything still needed to work and everything has. The laboratory work, the human clinical trials, all these things have lined up in record speed. It worked out in the way that it was planned. Nothing hit a snag. That’s really amazing.”

Both de Wit and Munster said it’s important for the general public to understand that the building blocks for this rapid development of a vaccine were put in place decades ago.

“If you are involved in it, it all makes sense,” Munster said. “For the general public, it seems unprecedented.”

Since the 2014 Ebola outbreak, public and private partnerships between scientists and pharmaceutical companies have been working to shorten the time frame for developing new vaccines so they can make a difference when a new pathogen appears.

“One of the big differences from the development of previous vaccines was the resources that were available this time,” de Wit said. “Everyone in the research community and all the pharmaceutical companies wanted to make a vaccine happen…The FDA made sure they were ready to make approvals so the next step could happen. And there were a lot of people who were willing to participate in vaccine trials.”

“Enrolling 30,000 people in vaccine candidate trials is quite unprecedented,” Munster said.

Munster and de Wit said all of this couldn’t happen without the cooperation of research teams from around the world.

“People have this old-fashioned idea about science,” de Wit said. “They think it’s one brilliant person who has this brilliant idea that’s made in a light bulb. That’s not really how science works. You really need to put a lot of brains and hands together.”

While the couple is appreciative of the recent award they were presented, both said the credit really belongs to all the people who work at Rocky Mountain Laboratories.

The two have been working at the Hamilton facility since 2009.

“We think we are extraordinarily blessed to be able to live here,” Munster said. “We have all the resources that we need to be able to do our work and then we can still go outside and enjoy nature.”

Since the pandemic's onset, the couple said they have been extremely diligent in maintaining social distancing. The only time they go out into a public space is a 7 a.m. grocery shopping trip on Sunday mornings.

“For us, this has been a crazy year,” de Wit said. “While other people are having to struggle to stay indoors, we have been able to do what we love by going to work. We love figuring out what kind of disease this is and what we can do to prevent people from getting sick.”

They hope their neighbors will continue to hunker down and do everything they can to stay safe for the next few months until the vaccine becomes readily available.

“With the vaccines, I think we are really getting close to the end of it,” Munster said. “Everyone just needs to be strong for the next couple of months until they can get vaccinated. People need to keep wearing their masks, keeping their distance and practice proper hygiene.”

The two scientists who have spent their careers studying some of the most infectious diseases known to the world are certain that masks work to control the spread of virus.

“We think it’s very simple concept,” Munster said. “This virus replicates the most in people’s noses. It’s transmitted when people inhale and exhale. The moment you wear a mask, it’s harder to get enough virus particles for someone to become infected.”

“Masks are such an easy thing,” de Wit said. “You just put them on before you go into the store. It’s something that everyone can do to keep everyone safe. We’re not all scientists who can work on a vaccine, but this is something that everyone can do to try to keep each other a little safer.”

“People should have the freedom of not being exposed to someone else’s virus,” Munster said.