CCP Virus Initially Spread More Quickly Than WHO Suggested: Study

Commuters wear protective masks and keep their distance at subway during Monday rush hour in Beijing on April 13, 2020. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) concluded in a recent study that the CCP virus could have been more contagious when it first spread in China than the World Health Organization (WHO) reported.

The research, published in the scientific journal Emerging Infectious Disease on April 7, found that the virus’s reproduction number, or R0 (pronounced “R naught”), in Wuhan—where the outbreak first erupted—was initially 5.7.