• Question: why does the rate of infection change in different diseases?

    Asked by anon-251281 to Alice on 22 Apr 2020.
    • Photo: Alice Coburn

      Alice Coburn answered on 22 Apr 2020:

      One way of thinking about the rate of infection is how many other people are infected by each person who gets the disease. For a disease to spread, each infected person has to infect at least one other person, otherwise the disease dies out.

      How many people each infected person passes the infection on to will depend on lots of things about the disease. One of the most important factors is how the disease is spread. Diseases that spread by coughing and sneezing can infect lots of people with one sneeze if they are close together. This is why social distancing is important. Diseases that are spread by blood contact usually have a much smaller number of people exposed.

Comments

  • Photo: anon-251281

    anon-251281 commented on :

    Thanks Alice for answering my question

  • Photo: Donna

    Donna commented on :

    For viruses… it actually depends a lot on size and number of people in a smal space. Tiny viruses can be sneezed and coughed further than larger viruses… so it is much easier to spread smaller viruses like coronoviruses. More people in a smaller space means that they are more likely to be hit by viruses in coughs and sneezes – a good reason for the social distancing that we are all doing just now!