In December 2019, with the outbreak of the unidentified pneumonia, a novel coronavirus was confirmed to be accountable for this disease and aroused great attention around the entire world. The World Health Organization (WHO) officially named the novel coronavirus as SARS-CoV-2 and the pneumonia of unknown origin as Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19). At present, COVID-19 has become an unprecedented global health crisis, with over 6 million confirmed cases and 350,000 deaths worldwide. The main manifestations are usually fever, cough, fatigues, breathlessness, and among others. To date, specific antiviral agents against the SARS-CoV-2 are not available. Extensive measures to reduce person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 have been implemented to control the current outbreak. In this review, we detail current evidence and understanding of the etiology, epidemiology, clinical characteristics, treatment of COVID-19, which may provide a reference for future studies and help in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic.