The first three months of the COVID-19 epidemic: Epidemiological evidence for two separate strains of SARS-CoV-2 viruses spreading and implications for prevention strategies

Knut M. Wittkowski

By Mid-January 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 were seen in other Asian countries, but incidence remained below about 3/M/d outside of continental China (Fig 5c) ; only Malaysia/Brunei and Singapore did the incidence raise above 5/M/d; in Singapore incidence has recently increased to 60/M/d. In Japan with the largest proportion of people >65 years of age in the world (28%) remained below 1.1/M/d until recently, when incidence increased to ~7/M/d. Hence, Japan may be increasing to the level seen in South Korea, unless spread of the virus ends with the end of the flu season. China . CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.