How Quickly Can the Coronavirus Spread? | Unveiled

How Quickly Can Unknown Viruses Spread?

Contagions of any kind are a frightening prospect. If we don’t know what a disease is or how it’s spread, it’s much harder to contain and treat it. Even in the contemporary world, have we learned enough to fight back?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; how quickly can unknown viruses spread?

In mid-December 2019, a mysterious illness began to afflict people in Wuhan, China, a large city south of Beijing. This illness was deemed a brand-new strain of coronavirus, a family of viruses that are found most commonly in mammals and birds, which can cause potentially dangerous respiratory diseases. The new outbreak is the seventh discovered strain of coronavirus capable of affecting humans.

Coronaviruses are actually responsible for many of the colds we develop each year – so, you may have already had one yourself in the past and just not known about it. But they do come in degrees of severity and they can sometimes develop into serious or fatal conditions, like pneumonia. In fact, even when you do have a seemingly straightforward cold, if it’s caused by a coronavirus then it’s likely to be more severe than one caused by a rhinovirus - the most common cause of the “common cold”. As such, the situation developing out of Wuhan is an unpredictable one.

For one, it’s impossible to say how many people have the Wuhan coronavirus because most of the earliest statistics are based only on those admitted to hospital due to the illness; according to analysts, the number of people with milder versions could be much higher. But, of course, based on the statistics that have emerged, the Wuhan virus is deadly. In late January, 2020, just eighteen days after the first reported fatality, the number of deaths linked to the virus had risen to more than eighty people. As with general colds and flu, coronaviruses are reportedly more dangerous for those who are already vulnerable – like children, the elderly and anyone with pre-existing health conditions - but the situation is made worse because we don’t have vaccines to tackle coronaviruses. The fear, then, is that the Wuhan strain could move unchecked and untreated around the world.

For health officials and the Chinese public, this outbreak bares some similarities to the 2001-2003 SARS outbreak – or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (which was also a coronavirus). With a fatality rate of six to eighteen percent, SARS at its peak was actually deadlier than the Wuhan strain has so far been… But, if there is a positive to come out of past cases like this, it’s that they gave China and the rest of the world a better idea on how to battle a future outbreak like the one happening right now. The initial response to the Wuhan coronavirus has been fast and comparatively decisive - with the unprecedented step to place the entire city of Wuhan under quarantine making headlines the world over. The hope is that developments like these - as well as the stringent screening of travellers in and out of all China’s major cities - will prevent a rapid and unmanageable spread. However, we have already seen reports of the Wuhan strain being identified in other countries; from Thailand to France to the United States.

More specifically, another significant measure that China has taken to contain the situation is to temporarily shut down the Huanan Seafood Market, a large fresh fish market in Wuhan (that also sells a lot more than just fish). Since coronaviruses often spread from animals first, it’s thought that this particular market may have been where it started - with some experts suggesting that the virus could have even been passed on here from bats to snakes and then to humans. The 2013 outbreak of MERS, Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome, another coronavirus, was spread from bats to camels and then to humans, initially in Saudi Arabia. While MERS does have an extremely high fatality rate, it’s also thought that it’s incredibly difficult to transmit from one human to another. Here lies another unknown with the Wuhan strain; we don’t truly know how effective the new virus is at jumping between people - although China has warned that it could spread before symptoms show and there are fears that it could mutate. Both of those situations would make containing it much more difficult.

Thankfully, in general, modern diseases don’t tend to claim as many lives or become as widespread as contagions in the past like the Black Death, for example. And that’s mostly because our understanding of diseases has significantly increased. In the Middle Ages, it was thought that the Plague was caused by “bad air” and that sweet-smelling herbs and flowers would prevent its spread. Meanwhile, those in Medieval Europe lived alongside the rats actually responsible for carrying the Plague along the Silk Road… it all combined for a nightmarish scenario that seemed impossible to stop.

Nowadays, we can usually take a much better, more informed approach to an unknown illness or virus from the very beginning… and modern living conditions are generally much improved and cleaner. Poor hygiene does remain an issue where the spread of disease is concerned, though… and since the 20th century, there have been innumerable public health campaigns encouraging people to wash their hands, cover their mouths when they cough and to sneeze into tissues - all in the hope that the threat of a virus spreading is limited. While some of these campaigns have been labelled as fearmongering, there’s an increasing urgency not to underestimate an unknown or unpredictable disease - which is something that has been done in the past.

Infectious diseases are often spread in similar ways no matter what they are, and almost always through person-to-person contact or bodily fluids. That’s true of two much more recent epidemics across the planet: HIV/AIDS (first identified in 1981) and Ebola (first identified in 1976). During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, it took years of campaigning and activism, along with thousands of deaths, before the American government seemed to take the threat seriously. Incredibly, in the earliest years of the outbreak, the US Center for Disease Control reportedly even coined names for the illness like “the 4H Disease” (with the four ‘H’s said to be Homosexuals, Heroin users, Haemophiliacs, and Haitians) while the press led with “GRID” (which stood for “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency”). In this case, a lack of research, knowledge and a seeming indifference by the authorities only allowed the virus to spread more ruthlessly. For all types of reasons - some scientific, some cultural - the threat of HIV/AIDS wasn’t recognised or responded to quickly enough.

By contrast, the US reaction to the West African Ebola outbreak between 2013 and 2016 was different. Airport screenings were brought in almost immediately, for example, and CDC guidelines on how to fight the disease were prompt and regularly revised to match an evolving situation. Ultimately, the number of fatalities in America was limited to two, thanks to a swift reaction. That said, all across the African continent, we still saw - and continue to see - just how devastating a rapidly spreading virus can be. Ebola remains a major threat across many countries, where it can be transmitted through contaminated meat. As a result, the local and international response to the mid-2010s epidemic was (and has since been) criticised as lacking and, again, as having initially underestimated the seriousness of the disease. Even seven years after the initial outbreak, Ebola still has an average fatality rate of around 50% - with sufferers often dying within two weeks of showing symptoms. Overall, the West African outbreak claimed more than 11,000 lives.

Back in Wuhan, in 2020, the authorities are working to avoid situations like those seen with regard to AIDS or Ebola, reportedly taking a strong line in dealing with the virus and allowing for zero complacency. Nevertheless, more than eighty deaths in just over two weeks has meant attention. And, in reality, whenever a new virus shows up, there is always “the unknown”. In an age when stories surrounding antimicrobial resistance dominate news coverage of health issues, we naturally wonder whether this will be the disease we can’t beat. And, really, there is some basis to this concern, particularly because the contagion perhaps most similar to coronavirus is actually incredibly common all over the planet, already; so common that many people underestimate the threat it can pose: and that’s the flu.

Influenza viruses are similarly difficult to fight, currently impossible to cure, and have historically been responsible for devastating pandemics; the most devastating of all being the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak that killed fifty million people. It was the same strain of influenza, H1N1, that caused the 2009 outbreak of Swine flu that dominated headlines and was estimated to have infected up to 20% of the global population. Like the Wuhan coronavirus, influenzas can also come from animals - another notable, twenty-first century example being the H5N1 strain or “bird flu” which, since 2003, has killed more than 400 people worldwide. Crucially, there isn’t a cure for either swine flu or bird flu. In the majority of cases, humans were able to overcome the virus themselves. With coronaviruses, including the 2020 outbreak, the circumstances are the same.

Thanks to contemporary medicine, modern attitudes and generally improved understanding, sudden disease outbreaks today should pose less of a threat and shouldn’t uncontrollably spread. But health and medicine isn’t a predictable field, and the Wuhan coronavirus is an ongoing and developing situation that has already proven to be deadly. When it comes to illnesses that we can’t cure or consistently vaccinate against, the professional advice almost always repeats that the best defences involve maintaining good hygiene, vigilantly monitoring for symptoms and seeing a doctor if you have any concerns. These viruses don’t always follow a rulebook; they don’t always behave as we’d expect; but history shows that it pays not to underestimate them.