Not exactly. There’s an incubation period, and people eventually stop being infectious. A longer incubation period slows the doubling rate, but makes containment harder rather than easier. The majority of infected people won’t infect anyone; they’ll be quarantined or self-isolated before they get the chance. The 5-day doubling time is an empirical observation, made in contexts where significant efforts are already being made to limit spread; if we make less effort than the cities which generated that data, the doubling time will be faster.
The parameter typically used for estimating infectiousness is R0, which determines the fraction of transmissions which would have to be prevented in order to contain an outbreak. Estimates of R0 range from high to very high.
Not exactly. There’s an incubation period, and people eventually stop being infectious. A longer incubation period slows the doubling rate, but makes containment harder rather than easier. The majority of infected people won’t infect anyone; they’ll be quarantined or self-isolated before they get the chance. The 5-day doubling time is an empirical observation, made in contexts where significant efforts are already being made to limit spread; if we make less effort than the cities which generated that data, the doubling time will be faster.
The parameter typically used for estimating infectiousness is R0, which determines the fraction of transmissions which would have to be prevented in order to contain an outbreak. Estimates of R0 range from high to very high.