Each infected person passes virus on to 2-3 others
LONDON (Reuters) — Each person infected with coronavirus is passing the disease on to between two and three other people on average at current transmission rates, according to two separate scientific analyses of the epidemic.
Whether the outbreak will continue to spread at this rate depends on the effectiveness of control measures, the scientists who conducted the studies said.
Neil Ferguson, an infectious disease specialist at Imperial College London who co-led one of the studies, suggested that as many as 4,000 people in Wuhan were already infected by Jan. 18 and that on average each case was infecting two or three others.
A second study by researchers at Britain’s Lancaster University also calculated the contagion rate at 2.5 new people on average being infected by each person already infected.
”Should the epidemic continue unabated in Wuhan, we predict (it) will be substantially larger by Feb. 4,” the scientists wrote.
They estimated that the central Chinese city of Wuhan where the outbreak began in December will alone have around 190,000 cases of infection by Feb. 4, and that “infection will be established in other Chinese cities, and importations to other countries will be more frequent.”
China: Virus ability to spread getting stronger
Meanwhile, China’s National Health Commission said the virus transmission ability is getting stronger and infections could continue to rise.
National Health Commission Minister Ma Xiaowei, speaking at a press briefing, said authorities’ knowledge of the new virus was limited and they are unclear on the risks posed by mutations of the virus.
Ma said the incubation period for the coronavirus can range from one to 14 days, and that the virus is infectious during incubation.
Containment efforts, which have thus far included transportation and travel curbs and the cancellation of big events, will be intensified, Ma told a crowded news briefing on the second day of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The virus, believed to have originated late last year in a seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan that was illegally selling wildlife, has spread to Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the United States, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Australia, France and Canada.