Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: early estimation of epidemiological parameters and epidemic predictions

[sharon sanders]

hat tip to tetano and a friend of FluTrackers



Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: early estimation of epidemiological parameters and epidemic predictions


Jonathan M. Read1, Jessica R.E. Bridgen1, Derek A.T. Cummings2, Antonia Ho, Chris P.Jewell1
Affiliations:1. Centre for Health Informatics, Computing and Statistics, Lancaster Medical School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom. 2. Department of Biology and Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, United States of America.3. Medical Research Council-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Glasgow, United Kingdom.

snip

Summary

We are still in the early days of this outbreak and there is much uncertainty in both the scale of the outbreak, as well as key epidemiological information regarding transmission. However, the rapidity of the growth of cases since the recognition of the outbreak is much greater than that observed in outbreaks of either SARS or MERS-CoV. This is consistent with our higher estimates of the reproductive number for this outbreak compared to these other emergent coronaviruses, suggesting that containment or control of this pathogen may be substantially more difficult.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fz7..._3PmysukL/view

[Laidback Al]

From the cited article

If no change in control or transmission happens, then we expect further outbreaks to
occur in other Chinese cities, and that infections will continue to be exported to
international destinations at an increasing rate. In 14 days’ time (4 February 2020),
our model predicts the number of infected people in Wuhan to be greater than 250
thousand (prediction interval, 164,602 to 351,396).

The exponential models that the authors use are sound based on 12 or 13 days of good data we currently have on the number of increasing 2019-nCoV cases. The projections suggest that within two weeks the number of confirmed cases in China could rise to several hundred thousand cases.

We don’t know how the actual number of reported cases have been distributed over the past few days. Was there a backlog in testing cases? Were the health officials waiting on confirmations before increasing the local case count?

There is lot of uncertainty about the infection rate and spread of this virus, but we certainly will not have to wait long to find out if it is spreading at this high rate.

[gsgs]

what I don't understand is, how there can be so many international cases and cases in other Chinese provinces
with so few alleged cases in Wuhan. I mean, how many long-distance-travelors do you expect per Wuhan-citizen ?

Did we have that with e.g. ebola ? Just a few doctors and nurses

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E...virus_outbreak

Confirmed cases have also been reported in
Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, the United States,[23]
Singapore,[25] Vietnam,[13] France[26], Nepal[15], Australia[14] and Malaysia.[6]

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recalculated that "4,000 cases of 2019-nCoV in Wuhan City... had onset of symptoms by 18th January 2020"
24 Jan : 1364 lab. confirmed cases,
1330 China, 5 Thailand, 5 Hong Kong, 3 France, 3 Singapore, 3 Taiwan,
2 Macau, 2 Vietnam, 2 Japan, 2 South Korea, 2 USA 1 Australia, 1 Nepal

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MN908947

http://virological.org/t/novel-2019-...s-genome/319/3