Health experts believe that the 2019 novel coronavirus, which originated from Wuhan City in China, will not end soon.
Researchers said the virus outbreak may last for several months and could infect tens of thousands of people.
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“The best-case scenario, you would have something where we go through the spring into the summer, and then it dies down,” David Fisman, a professor at the University of Toronto told AFP.
“It’s not something that’s going to end the next week or the next month,” said Alessandro Vespignani, a professor at Northeastern University also told the news agency.
Vespignani is part of a team that manages an online group about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.
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The new virus first appeared in December, and their studies are based only in comparison to previous outbreaks.
Researchers said that they first thought that the virus was not contagious until fever, respiratory problems, and pneumonia showed up as symptoms.
Incubation for the virus is estimated to last for two weeks.
For now, the infection rate of the Wuhan coronavirus is relatively low compared to other epidemics like SARS and even the usual measles.
“The more we learn about it, the more it looks like SARS,” Fisman said. “SARS was controllable; hopefully this will be too. But we won’t know for a few weeks,” he added.
“It’s going to be many weeks, probably months, and nobody knows where this will go,” the expert said.
