As confirmed cases of coronavirus surge, path grows uncertain
The number of confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus surged to nearly 17,400 by Monday, and a Harvard epidemiologist says that it’s likely as many as 100,000 are already infected, so he expects the official tally to continue to climb steeply. “Many epidemiologists and people who are following this outbreak closely are assuming that it’s probably quite a bit more widespread than the case counts suggest,” said Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Many people also think that there’s probably over 100,000 in reality out in mainland China, for example. We just don’t capture all of those through the case reporting we have. … We can assume that this is growing at somewhat of an exponential rate, and it will continue increasing in scale.” Mina, who participated in a Facebook Live event sponsored by The Forum at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public...