Transmissibility of COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 - Of Interest to Dentists
Transmissibility of COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2
See full article at:
https://www.fpm.org.uk/blog/covid-19-sars-cov-2-pandemic/
Transmissibility
The transmissibility of infection and illness is a critical component of epidemic projections and health service planning. Transmissibility is usually described by the calculation of the reproductive number R0, representing the average number of new infections generated by an infectious person in a totally naïve population. The complete calculation of this is hampered by our non-understanding of the portion of infections which remain asymptomatic. However, based on the incidence of transmission from identified symptomatic cases to contacts, R0 for SARS-CoV-2 ranges from 1.4 to 322. This is higher than the estimated R0 for 1918 pandemic influenza23. Thus, this epidemic, which appears to be highly transmissible, is likely to have a very significant impact on the health of populations worldwide.