The notorious novel coronavirus has been causing various cases of pneumonia outbreak starting in Wuhan, Hubei province in China and spreading throughout the world. This paper presents a study of the information available on the outbreak, to provide a deeper understanding of the origin, transmission and danger of this newly discovered virus. The basic reproduction rate (R0 ) is focused on to understand the transmission pattern of this virus. Results obtained from the studies conducted by various parties have been collected and compared. It is believed that this virus is highly related with the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV that happened during 2003 and 2012, respectively, hence a lot of preliminary studies are based on these as there is lack of sufficient data specific to COVID-19. Studies reported R0 within the range of 2-5, indicating that each infected patient will transmit the virus to 2-5 other individuals.