I am not an epidemiologist, nor am I studying epidemiology, this is a question born of sheer curiosity due to current events.
I understand (more or less) the principle behind the basic reproduction number R0, but what I dont understand is how an infection RATE is measured? For example, a person carrying, lets say, the covid19 virus, can go to a party and infect 80% of guests, but the R0 for covid19 (according to some papers, at least) stands at about 2.4-2.6, meaning (if I understand correctly) that a person would infect on average 2 people. So, what I am asking is, how does one infect 80% of people in a given room, but the R0 is set at 2.4-2.6? and how does one measure the rate/chance of infecting another?
Thanks in advance!
One method to express infectivity is termed, 'basic reproduction number', which takes into account the proportion of persons who get the infection in the beginning of an epidemic when an infected person comes in contact with the susceptible population, number of contacts per day and period for which a person remains infectiousness. Also abbreviated as R -zero. This depends setting and setting- specific like population density, and social factors and many more. This number for SARS-Cov2 is approx. 2.5 in China (was 1 for MERS, 2 to 5 for SARS)
Hello dr. Daniela,,, Thanks for yr good question
Please check this Q&A link
What are the methods of measuring infectivity in Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_methods_of_measuring_infectivity_in_Transmissible_Spongiform_Encephalopathies
I agree with dear prof. Kameshwar about : BRR >> basic reproductive rate
Also there are other measures like :
Incidence rate in surveillance system (in population)
attack rate in outbreak/epidemic/pandemic investigation
A recent review (link below) found the average Ro for 2019-nCoV to be 3.28, which exceeded WHO estimates of 1.4 to 2.5.
Article The reproductive number of COVID-19 is higher compared to SA...
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