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Lobster -> RE: OT - The New Coronavirus (3/7/2020 9:07:21 PM)
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From the University of Chicago School of Medicine, September 2016. I'd say they now have a case study:
Cobey and her colleagues simulated climate conditions, population dynamics and patterns of flu epidemics in these regions and found that only the transmission rate had a significant effect on the evolution of new strains that had the potential to spread globally. A transmission rate 17-28 percent higher in one region could explain historically observed patterns of flu epidemics.
"We basically find that increasing the transmission rate just a little bit greatly accelerates the rate at which antigenically novel strains can displace one another," Cobey said.
Understanding how and why seasonal flu tends to originate in these areas reinforces the need for surveillance to identify new strains, not just in the affected parts of Asia, but other parts of the world with high-density populations, like west Africa. It also highlights how public health efforts to limit the spread of flu, namely widespread vaccination, can also limit the emergence of new strains.
Cobey said that while the team's analysis focused initially on flu, it can also apply to any fast-evolving, human transmissible viruses like enteroviruses and colds.
"They spread from continent to continent over a pretty short time scale, so it will be exciting to see if we find similar patterns down the road once we have better surveillance of all these viruses," she said.
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