Transmissibility of 2019 Novel Coronavirus: zoonotic vs. human to human transmission, China, 2019-2020
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Abstract
Objectives
The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) originating from Wuhan has rapidly spread throughout China. While the origin of the outbreak remains uncertain, accumulating evidence links a wet market in Wuhan for the early spread of 2019-nCoV. Similarly, the influence of the marketplace on the early transmission dynamics is yet to be investigated.
Methods
Using the daily series of 2019-nCov incidenceincluding contact history with the market, we have conducted quantitative modeling analyses to estimate the reproduction numbers ( R ) for the market-to-human and human-to-human transmission together with the reporting probability and the early effects of public health interventions.
Results
Our mean R estimates for China in 2019-2020 are estimated at 0.37 (95%CrI: 0.02-1.78) for market-to-human transmission, and 3.87 (95%CrI: 3.18-4.78) for human-to-human transmission, respectively. Moreover we estimated that the reporting rate cases stemming from market-to-human transmission was 3-31 fold higher than that for cases stemming from human-to-human transmission, suggesting that contact history with the wet market played a key role in identifying 2019-nCov cases.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that the proportions of asymptomatic and subclinical patients constitute a substantial component of the epidemic’s magnitude. Findings suggest that the development of rapid diagnostic tests could help bring the epidemic more rapidly under control.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.16.20037036: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our results are not free from limitations. First, the serial interval for COVID-19 assumed in our analyses was extrapolated from a previous study, and had to exclude recent data from the epidemic curve due to reporting delays. In fact, our sensitivity analysis on the serial interval indicate some influence on our R estimates. Further our …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.16.20037036: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our results are not free from limitations. First, the serial interval for COVID-19 assumed in our analyses was extrapolated from a previous study, and had to exclude recent data from the epidemic curve due to reporting delays. In fact, our sensitivity analysis on the serial interval indicate some influence on our R estimates. Further our R estimates could be further improved using additional data collected by field investigations. Second, we cannot rule out the possibility that some cases with contact history with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market got infected by contact with humans. However, our low R estimate for market-to-human transmission indicates that such a proportion is quite low. Third, our method is a powerful tool to estimate the underlying cases including asymptomatic and mild symptoms, and our results suggests that those proportions constitute a large fraction of the epidemic’s magnitude. Indeed, the result of careful screening and detailed examination of a total of 566 Japanese returnees evacuated from Wuhan city by government-chartered planes during January 29-3, 2020 revealed a ratio of 5 asymptomatic to 4 symptomatic cases [17]. In addition, one study reported that the majority of seasonal coronavirus infections are asymptomatic by most symptom definitions and only 4% of individuals experiencing a seasonal coronavirus infection episode sought medical care for their symptoms [18]. This accumulating evidence further underscores the need to account for a sign...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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