A new transmission route for the propagation of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

Antoine Danchin; Tuen Wai Patrick Ng; Gabriel TURINICI

Late in 2019 a novel coronavirus (named SARS-Cov-2 later on) was detected in mainland China originating from the Wuhan province. The importance of the disease took some time to be acknowledged 1,2 , resulting in a fairly significant number of infected persons who subsequently spread the disease throughout China 3 (all provinces had at least one case on January 30th), then world-wide. This makes it essential to explore the way the epidemic may spread in the near future. In the present work we proposed several scenarios to this aim. While it is obviously hazardous to advance models of epidemics before their course has been completely unfolded, we think that it is helpful to evaluate methods meant to understand their ongoing course. In particular by following how the epidemic developed at places other than its original site of onset, we would be able to detect any unexpected development course that might be used by health authorities to react very early on. This would be extremely useful to detect patterns created by socio-political measures meant to contain the disease or mutants of the virus which would result into higher contagion or virulence, thus prompting a rapid response.