Trying to get some perspective on what is going on, I thought these charts were helpful, and this summary from Vox.
I also read an article on the lancet explaining how this compares to SARS, here, because on the face of it, didn’t we deal with that one with less fuss?
So, the article asks, why have the case numbers of COVID-19 already surpassed those of SARS by Jan 30, 2020?
1) the epicenter Wuhan is very large, and very interconnected with the rest of China, and China is far more connected with the world
2) the infectious period may be different, with more pre-symptomatic transition
3) the transmissibility might be higher for COVID-19 than for SARS, and some early instances suggest that could be the case
4) that the clinical spectrum is different, with perhaps many more mild cases
5) community spread is more prominent, whereas SARS was mainly an outbreak propagated within hospitals
What’s interesting is that much of this is hypothesis and more data and time is required to confirm. Hopefully, measures taken now to increase social distances will flatten the curve, and so far fewer get really sick.
I also read an article on the lancet explaining how this compares to SARS, here, because on the face of it, didn’t we deal with that one with less fuss?
So, the article asks, why have the case numbers of COVID-19 already surpassed those of SARS by Jan 30, 2020?
1) the epicenter Wuhan is very large, and very interconnected with the rest of China, and China is far more connected with the world
2) the infectious period may be different, with more pre-symptomatic transition
3) the transmissibility might be higher for COVID-19 than for SARS, and some early instances suggest that could be the case
4) that the clinical spectrum is different, with perhaps many more mild cases
5) community spread is more prominent, whereas SARS was mainly an outbreak propagated within hospitals
What’s interesting is that much of this is hypothesis and more data and time is required to confirm. Hopefully, measures taken now to increase social distances will flatten the curve, and so far fewer get really sick.
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