Risk Analysis & Coronaviruses

23 January 2020
23 January 2020

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At this writing (January 23, 2020), there have been several hundred identified cases of novel coronavirus (designated as 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization). This is the third significant outbreak of a coronavirus in recent years, following SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) originating in 2003 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) originating in 2012.

Epidemiological investigations are important in understanding, responding to, and ultimately stopping such outbreaks. But it has become apparent that the tools of risk analysis are also important, and provide parallel assets that should be deployed. This virtual issue brings together papers relating to the coronaviruses that should be of use to those concerned with this emerging new outbreak.

Highlights of the papers in this issue are:

  • Hong and Collins (2006) investigated differences in population responses to SARS and influenza which could be explained by the concepts of unfamiliarity of newly emergent risks.
  • Watanabe et al. (2010) developed dose response models for SARS-CoV from animal data and validated these from information on a 2003 cluster of cases in Hong Kong
  • Nicolaides et al. (2019) showed the effectiveness of implementing hand hygiene measures for international air travelers, and the importance of its use in key influential locations.
  • There was concern during the MERS CoV outbreak for significant transmission person to person during the 2012 and 2013 Hajj’s in Saudi Arabia – but such transmission did not occur. Gardner et al. (2014) discussed reasons for these findings relating to differences between the MERS and SARS CoV’s.
  • Indoor person to person transmission including in the healthcare setting can be of importance. Lopez-Garcia et al. (2019) coupled a zonal ventilation model with an epidemiologic SIS model to assess impacts of design of ventilation on potential cross-transmission.
  • Liao et al. (2005) in the context of SARS CoV coupled epidemiologic transmission models to ventilation characteristics in various settings to estimate the basic reproductive number (R0), of importance in assessing sustained transmission
  • Adhikari et al. (2019) assessed the risk of cross transmission of MERS CoV in a hospital setting and determined that respiratory masks were more beneficial risk reduction strategies than increasing room air exchange rates.

This illustrates that the field of risk analysis can contribute to understanding and solving issues such as emergent infections, now manifest in 2019-nCoV. This journal welcomes receipt of submissions that may arise from the study and understanding of this latest public health incident.

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