The scenarios simulated the spread of disease based on the latest reported number of cases in the countries outside China with the highest number of cases, including South Korea, Italy and Iran.
The scenarios simulated the spread of disease based on the latest reported number of cases in the countries outside China with the highest number of cases, including South Korea, Italy and Iran.
AIR Worldwide senior scientist Dr Narges Dorratoltaj said, “To evaluate the potential of cases in other countries (outside of China), we used the AIR pandemic model to run hypothetical scenarios. In these scenarios, we simulated the spread of disease based on the latest reported number of cases in the countries outside China with the highest number of cases - South Korea, Italy and Iran with 2033, 650, and 245 reported cases, respectively, as of February 28. What we observed in these countries was an abrupt rise in the reported number of severe cases, which implies the existence of clusters before public health officials became aware of them.
“The prime assumption in these scenarios is that by the time a country starts to act against the further transmission of diseases, cases have already been exported to other countries. Air travel enables large numbers of people to travel internationally quickly. Based on the daily pattern of travel between airports, we can develop a list of countries with a higher probability of having imported cases from the source countries.”