I have somewhat better news for you tonight. The WHO's report on what they observed in China came out today. Here's a summarized version of findings:
- While we are in a pandemic, we still have an opportunity, albeit much more difficult to achieve, of containment. How long this takes, and how successful we are, ultimately depends on breaking chains of transmission.
- SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, is only transmitted via droplets and surface contamination. It is not airborne. There is also very weak evidence of fecal-oral transmission.
WASHING YOUR HANDS AND COVERING YOUR COUGHS IS ABSOLUTELY VITAL IN PREVENTING SPREAD!!!
- The primary driver of community transmission is spread among close contacts in family settings, who then go on to infect the wider community.
- Contact tracing and quarantines are essential in the early stages of an outbreak.
- Massive cordon sanitaires (lockdowns) are the only effective means of stopping widespread transmission.
- For reasons poorly understood currently, this disease does not seem to infect children under 12 years of age efficiently. Unlike influenza, children are not seen as major drivers of transmission either.
- Overall case fatality ranges from 0.7-4.0%, depending on how aggressively medical services can respond in an outbreak area.
- Case fatality rate is much higher in those who are elderly and have underlying health conditions.
- Most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough- this is NOT "just a flu", but this is also not SARS or MERS. This is a unique disease that has its own unique case presentation.
- In terms of epidemiological modelling, prepare for sporadic outbreaks to occur throughout the globe in the short-term, including in North America.
Above all, and most importantly, continue to prepare for the possibility of massive outbreaks to occur at any time which can result in disruption to your daily life.
Also interesting to note that the WHO estimated an R0 no higher than 2.5
What this means is- while this is highly infectious, it's not as infectious as earlier models might suggest. What does this mean?
It means that we still have a few weeks of lead time, with aggressive public health measures, to eradicate this virus. As long as the United States keeps up travel bans and aggressive public screening and prevention efforts, the effects in the United States won't be as severe as in many other countries.