In an unfavorable scenario, up to two-thirds of the world's population can become infected with a new type of coronavirus, suggested the adviser to the World Health Organization, Ayru Longini.
Quarantine measures can slow the spread of the disease, but they were taken after the virus managed to penetrate different parts of China and beyond, said the expert, quoted by Bloomberg.
Longini's model is based on data according to which each infected person, under normal conditions, infects two or three more people. Even if that figure is halved, the virus will still catch a third of the world's population, said Longini, who also heads the Center for Infectious Disease Statistics at the University of Florida.
On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities informed WHO of an outbreak of unknown pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei province. Experts have identified the causative agent of the disease - a new coronavirus. To date, 1367 people have died from the disease in China alone, almost 6 thousand have recovered, the number of confirmed cases of infection is approaching 60 thousand.