The purpose of this research is to explore the spread dynamics of a novel coronavirus outbreak, or 2019-nCOV via a fractional approach of type fractal-fractional (FF) derivative. We considered the FF approach in sense of the Atangana–Baleanu derivative for the system 2019-nCOV. In the FF operator, when we choose fractional-order one, we achieve the fractal model and when choosing fractal order one then we obtain a fractional model and while considering both the operators together we obtain the fractal-fractional model. The obtained results show via graphics for the different collections of fractal and fractional orders. The graphical results show the new operator impacts on a practical situation in a more visual way.