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How quickly does the Wuhan virus spread?

Chinese officials have confirmed that the virus is spreading between people, but it’s still unclear how easily this happens.
  1. Nicky Phillips
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  2. Smriti Mallapaty
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  3. David Cyranoski

    1. David Cyranoski reports for Nature from Shanghai, China.

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Researchers are scrambling to ascertain how readily a virus that has infected hundreds of people — and killed at least four — in Asia spreads between people. The revelation on Monday that health-care workers have been infected, considered a litmus test for a pathogen’s ability to spread between people, suggests that the pathogen is more contagious than previously thought, they say. The World Health Organization has called a meeting to decide whether to declare the worsening outbreak a public-health emergency.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00146-w

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