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Professor Gabriel Leung of the University of Hong Kong has very pessimistically anticipated the spread of the coronavirus. He told the Guardian that 60% of the world’s population could be reached if the epidemic were not controlled.
In an interview with The Guardian, Professor Gabriel Leung, president of the University of Hong Kong’s medical school, warned that if the coronavirus epidemic is not controlled, “two-thirds of the world’s population” could be affected. A prediction that seems somewhat exaggerated, especially since the number of new cases detected daily has decreased over the past week.
“60% of the population is a frightfully high figure,” admitted the specialist, who arrived at this estimate considering that each person affected by the virus will transmit it on average to 2.5 other individuals. He stresses that the priority will be to determine on what scale the epidemic will be able to spread .
A second priority will be to find out if the drastic measures put in place by China have worked. If so, other countries should adopt the same, he said. He is concerned that other major cities around the world may become important centers of spread. In question, people who would have traveled and could have returned to their country with no symptoms yet, or when no public health measure had yet been put in place.
Containment measures
“If the containment of China does not work, we will have to face the truth: the coronavirus could be impossible to contain”, worries the professor, adding that the solution will no longer be to try to stop it but to minimize its effects. That is why quarantine measures are essential at this time.
The main problem is the period during which an individual is infected but shows no symptoms. When several people are in quarantine for two weeks, if only one of them is tested positive, then the isolation time should be reset and all the others should stay another 14 days, he said. .
Mr. Leung had already played an important role when the Sars appeared in 2002-2003, and is now working closely with other scientists in London and Oxford, the British daily reported.
The toll of the epidemic crossed the threshold of 1,000 deaths Tuesday, February 11, and 42,000 cases have been confirmed. Outside China, 400 infected people have been identified. A WHO official warned, however, that these figures were perhaps only “the tip of the iceberg.”
