Will the New Coronavirus Keep Spreading or Not? You Have to Know One Little Number
Whenever there’s a new outbreak, scientists rush to calculate a number called R0, or R-naught. Why? It’s been a critical part of the scientific effort to understand just how transmissible the new virus is. Here’s how.
Editor’s Note (2/11/20): The video in this story has been revised after posting. It originally incorrectly referred to SARS as “sudden acute respiratory syndrome.” The full name is “severe acute respiratory syndrome.”
Join Our Community of Science Lovers!
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber