Three months into the pandemic, here's how likely the coronavirus is to infect people -... - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...a-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html
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as horrible as this virus is, it is not the worst, most apocalyptic virus imaginable. Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, is not as contagious as measles, and although it is very dangerous, it is not as likely to kill an infected person as, say, Ebola.
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Researchers believe the incubation period before symptoms is roughly five days on average. In studying the pattern of illness, epidemiologists have made the dismaying discovery that people start shedding the virus — potentially making others sick — in advance of symptoms.
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The bulldozer nature of coronavirus means widespread severe illnesses and deaths from covid-19 can happen with terrifying speed.
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a large percentage of the world’s population, potentially billions of people, could become infected within the next couple of years. Frantic efforts to develop a safe and effective vaccine are likely to take a year or more.
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But on Jan. 23, China imposed extreme travel restrictions and soon put hundreds of millions of people into some form of lockdown as authorities aggressively limited social contact. The R0 plummeted below 1, and the epidemic has been throttled in China, at least for now.
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R0, pronounced “R naught.” That is the average number of new infections generated by each infected person.
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he R0 is not an intrinsic feature of the virus. It can be lowered through containment, mitigation and ultimately “herd immunity,”
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In the early days in China, before the government imposed extreme travel restrictions in Wuhan and nearby areas, and before everyone realized exactly how bad the epidemic might be, the R0 was 2.38, according to a study published in the journal Science. That is a highly contagious disease.
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The pandemic appears to be largely driven by direct, human-to-human transmission. That is why public health officials have told people to engage in social distancing
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its ability to spread depends also on the vulnerability of the human population, including the density of the community.
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Without a vaccine or a drug to stop infections, the best hope is to break the chain of transmission one infection at a time
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“Social distancing is building speed bumps so that we can slow the spread of the virus. We have to respect the speed bumps,”
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She compared the current public measures to what happened during the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed an estimated 675,000 people in the United States, and in which some cities were more careful than others about enforcing social distancing.
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“The USA is currently in a natural experiment of sorts, which each state implementing their own version of social distancing,” she said. “We will be able to compare the efficacy of these various public health policies, but not until more time has passed.”
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Not only must people limit their direct contact, they need to limit the amount that their paths overlap, because the virus can linger on surfaces.
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in pristine laboratory conditions, some SARS-CoV-2 particles can remain potentially viable on metal or plastic for up to three days.
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Absent hard data, limiting contact with shared surfaces, such as door handles or checkout machines, and frequent hand-washing is highly advisable.
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people have some innate, mechanical defenses against viruses just like they do against pollen and dust, Taubenberger noted. Cells in the respiratory tract have tiny hairlike projections, called cilia, that move mucus toward the throat in a manner that helps clear invasive particles. This is not our body’s first viral rodeo.