Visualised: how Ebola compares to other infectious diseases
With Ebola panic spreading, we thought it might be timely to visualise the data on the infectiousness of various pathogens.
To give a universal metric for infectiousness, we’ve used the average ‘basic reproduction number’ (also ratio or rate). It’s a statistical measure of how likely and widespread an infectious disease outbreak might be - if nothing is done to control the situation.
Every disease has a basic reproduction number but the numbers are scattered across the literature. We’ve web-crawled and gathered them all here in one graphic, plotting them against the average case fatality rate - the % of infectees who die. This hopefully gives us a data-centric way to understand the most infectious and deadly diseases and contextualise current events.
I couldn't find an updated version with COVID-19 included, but this is a great graphic:
I'll leave it to jon to add COVID-19 to the table and produce a new graph....
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37898 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37898 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010