As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across China, a flurry of early research is drawing a clearer picture of how the pathogen behaves and the key factors that will determine whether it can be contained. While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China
remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat. To avoid any viral illness, experts advise washing your hands frequently and avoiding your office or school when you’re sick. Most healthy people don’t need masks, and hoarding them may contribute to shortages for health workers who do need them, experts said.The scale of an outbreak depends on how quickly and easily a virus is transmitted from person to person.
Compare that with a less contagious virus, like the seasonal flu. People with the flu tend to infect 1.3 other individuals, on average. Some illnesses, like influenza, have a short incubation period of two or three days. SARS, however, had an incubation period of about five days. In addition, it took four or five days after symptoms started before sick people could transmit the virus. That gave officials time to stop the virus and effectively contain the outbreak, said Dr. Allison McGeer, an infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, who was at the front lines of the Canadian response to SARS.
At the same time, deaths from the virus may be underreported. The Chinese cities at the center of the outbreak face a shortage of testing kits and hospital beds, and many sick people have not been able to see a doctor. But the measures have also had unintended effects. Residents in Wuhan who are unwell must walk or cycle for miles to get to hospitals. There, many complain that they are being turned away because of shortages of hospital beds, staff and supplies that have been made worse by the lockdown.
Wuhan is also a major transportation hub within China, linked to Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities by high-speed railways and domestic airlines. In October and November of last year, close to 2 million people flew from Wuhan to other places within China.
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