How Much Will the Coronavirus Spread? It's a Question of Biology and Math

Monday, February 10, 2020 Jumada II 16, 1441 AH Doha today 160 - 220 COVER Guesswork STORY How much will the coronavirus spread? It’s a question of biology and math. P4-5 BOLLYWOOD BACKPAGE I don’t take people’s opinions Qatar artist tells personal stories by too seriously: Sara. integrating realistic, abstract art. Page 14 Page 16 2 GULF TIMES Monday, February 10, 2020 COMMUNITY ROUND & ABOUT PRAYER TIME Fajr 4.54am Shorooq (sunrise) 6.14am Zuhr (noon) 11.49am Asr (afternoon) 3.01pm Maghreb (sunset) 5.25pm Isha (night) 6.55pm USEFUL NUMBERS Varane Aavashyamundu to Nikitha, who is obsessed with the concept of an arranged CAST: Kalyani Priyadarshan, Dulquer Salmaan, Shobana marriage. Their life changes when a retired army man and DIRECTION: Anoop Sathyan another young man come to stay at the apartment. Emergency 999 SYNOPSIS: Neena is a French teacher and single parent THEATRES: The Mall, Landmark, Royal Plaza Worldwide Emergency Number 112 Kahramaa – Electricity and Water 991 Local Directory 180 International Calls Enquires 150 Hamad International Airport 40106666 Labor Department 44508111, 44406537 Mowasalat Taxi 44588888 Qatar Airways 44496000 Hamad Medical Corporation 44392222, 44393333 Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation 44845555, 44845464 Primary Health Care Corporation 44593333 44593363 Qatar Assistive Technology Centre 44594050 Qatar News Agency 44450205 44450333 Q-Post – General Postal Corporation 44464444 Humanitarian Services Offi ce (Single window facility for the repatriation of bodies) Ministry of Interior 40253371, 40253372, 40253369 Ministry of Health 40253370, 40253364 Frozen 2 herself strangely unsettled. After hearing a mysterious voice Hamad Medical Corporation 40253368, 40253365 DIRECTION: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee call out to her, Elsa travels to the enchanted forests and dark Qatar Airways 40253374 CAST: Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff , Idina Menzel seas beyond her kingdom – an adventure that soon turns into SYNOPSIS: Elsa the Snow Queen has an extraordinary gift a journey of self-discovery. – the power to create ice and snow. But no matter how happy she is to be surrounded by the people of Arendelle, Elsa fi nds THEATRES: Landmark, The Mall te Unqu uo ot Q “A person e who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein Community Editor For movie timings and Kamran Rehmat further details please scan e-mail: [email protected] the QR code above with your Telephone: 44466405 mobile phone camera or visit qatarcinemas.com Fax: 44350474 Monday, February 10, 2020 GULF TIMES 3 ROUND & ABOUT COMMUNITY Keto Diet at Elite Medical Centre WHERE: Elite Medical Center WHEN: Tomorrow TIME: 11am To register for the seminar WhatsApp on 30771895 with your name and telephone number. It is a free seminar. After School Activities WHERE: Atelier WHEN: Ongoing Music and arts activities for students taking place after they fi nish their day in school includes Group Music lessons, Hip- hop, Ballet, Drawing and Painting, Drama Halal Qatar Festival TIME: 12:30pm Theatre & Taekwondo. Ages between 5 and 10 WHERE: Katara – the Cultural Village Street Food is the ideal venue for a leisure Qatar Food Fest years old after school hours. WHEN: Until today experience for the whole family off ering over WHERE: Sheraton Hotel Park TIME: 8am onwards 20 dine-in options and 18-hole World Mini- WHEN: Ongoing till April 30 The Halal Qatar Festival seeks to Golf setup. TIME: 4pm — 1am strengthen the Qatari and Gulf heritage The festival is currently happening at with all its rich resources in an entertaining Hobby Classes Sheraton Hotel Park. Qatar Food Fest features atmosphere. The theme of the festival centres WHERE: Mamangam Performing Art 77 stalls, food trucks, and trolleys, bringing on a distinct feature of Qatari heritage, one Centre culinary and cultural experiences from all that is drawn from deep within the deserts of WHEN:Wednesday – Monday corners of the globe to visitors and residents Qatar – sheep and goat breeding. Mamangam is an art and performance in Qatar. centre started with a vision of spreading our knowledge, interests and experience in various disciplines in arts across different Public Speaking Classes for Adults countries for children and adults. WHERE: Sharq Capital, C-Ring Road We offer regular classes in disciplines like WHEN:Ongoing till July 1 traditional classical dance, art and craft, TIME: 6:30pm – 9pm Bollywood and hip-hop styles, Carnatic Get trained by experts to be a good speaker. music, robotics, percussion instruments, Smedley Toastmasters is conducting a Ballet Lessons keyboard, yoga, zumba and martial arts six-month speech-craft programme that WHERE: Music and Arts Atelier like Karate, Shaolin Kung Fu and Kalari. teaches new members to speak confi dently WHEN: Ongoing For those who wish to register e-mail and develop leadership skills. For more TIME: 4pm – 8pm at [email protected] or call on information, 66053485, 33232490 or visit For more info e-mail at registration@ 33897609/44723680 www.SmedleyToastmasters.org atelierqatar.com or call on 33003839. Qatar National Sport Day WHERE: Museum of Illusions WHEN: Tomorrow TIME: 9am onwards Exercise your brain’s muscles and train your mind with Dilemma Games on Qatar National Sport Day! Break the record and win exciting prizes. Artistic Gymnastic Classes WHERE: Qatar Academy Msheireb WHEN: Ongoing TIME: 3:15pm – 4:15pm The Olympic sport using horizontal bar, rings and fl oor exercises on mats for the children from age 4 till 16. Metro Street Food WHERE: DECC Metro Station WHEN: Ongoing Compiled by Nausheen Shaikh. E-mail: [email protected], Events and timings subject to change 4 GULF TIMES Monday, February 10, 2020 COMMUNITY COVER STORY Coronavirus: Uncertainty and the number game So far, epidemiologists estimate that each person infected with the new coronavirus is infecting roughly two people on average — putting it in the same realm as Sars and the flu, but well below measles, with a reproduction number as high as 18, writes Tom Avril ALARM: If the virus continues to spread, the world will need to invest in a vaccine. At least two such eff orts are underway The more dangerous a virus is, the less it may spread. If it kills patients rapidly, or simply makes them too sick to leave home, a virus is less likely to be transmitted — Alison A Evans, associate professor of epidemiology and ‘ biostatistics ’ Monday, February 10, 2020 GULF TIMES 5 COVER STORY COMMUNITY hen a Lehigh Valley man came Evidence so far down with a fever, diarrhoea and suggests that the cough, he made no new coronavirus Wconnection between his symptoms and those of the more than 2,000 behaves like people who had been sickened with a mysterious new virus that had its cousin emerged in China. He hadn’t been to China, nor that causes anywhere else in Asia, where most Sars. Take cases had occurred. Eleven days and two hospital precautions as visits later, it turned out he had the same illness they did: Sars. you would with Researchers later determined that before his April 2003 diagnosis — at the flu: Avoid a time when he could have been sick people and spreading the virus — he had come into close, unprotected contact wash hands with 26 people: family members, healthcare workers, fellow patients and one bank teller. Yet in a reminder that predicting the spread of infectious disease is he was diagnosed with Sars after an inexact science, none of the 26 telling physicians he had been in became ill with Sars — severe acute Toronto. respiratory syndrome. The diff erence between whether The new coronavirus, a cousin a patient is a super-spreader or of the virus that causes Sars, also a “dead end” may depend on has sickened thousands. It is now treatment, Fisman said. If the more deadly, having claimed more person has severe symptoms and than 813 lives and infected more nurses have to stick a breathing than 37,566 in China (according tube down the patient’s throat, that to South China Morning Post until procedure can generate clouds of February 9), where it is thought to tiny, virus-laden particles, he said. have emerged at a large live-animal “They’re surrounded by a team market in Wuhan. trying to help them,” Fisman said. Will world health offi cials snuff “Everyone’s crowded in close. All it out as they did Sars, through a that generates a ton of aerosols.” combination of travel restrictions, That’s a key reason the measles surveillance and isolation of virus is so infectious: a patient patients? Or will it persist like the can put virus in the air simply by fl u, an annual, ever-morphing breathing. The tiny particles can visitor that already has killed more remain aloft, infecting someone than 8,200 Americans this season? David N Fisman, a professor of Fisman said. infected in Hong Kong. else who enters the room up to two A key part of the answer is epidemiology at the University of Yet the Lehigh Valley patient But the cluster was not identifi ed hours later. something called a reproduction Toronto. infected nobody. until April 9 — three days after But for some other respiratory number: the number of people that Take the one that causes Sars. The 52-year-old man was the Pennsylvania man’s fi rst visit viruses such as the flu and Sars, each patient with a given virus will While its average reproduction exposed to the virus in late March to a hospital emergency room, the infectious particles tend to infect, on average. That depends on number is thought to be somewhere 2003 while attending a religious according to a review by CDC and be carried by heavier droplets biology: how well the virus survives between two and three, a few retreat in Toronto.

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