Every election year has a disease; coronavirus has a contagion factor of 2 and a cure rate of 99.7% for those under 50 it infects.
, REVIEW  \nThese claims were published on Facebook in early March 2020 and circulated in the form of a meme or photo, with accompanying captions claiming that this information was provided at the office of a doctor or chiropractor. These claims have been viewed more than 3 million times on Facebook., The claim that “every election year has a disease” is inaccurate and imprecise. The images shared on Facebook do not specify which elections they are referring to, but if one counts elections at both the state and federal levels, every year@ is an election year in the U.S. Since disease outbreaks have not occurred every year, it follows that not every election year has been associated with a disease outbreak as implied by the claim., Furthermore, the claim attributes the wrong years for several of the listed diseases. The correct timeline for the emergence and outbreaks of the listed diseases is provided below:, The images also contain the claim that the “coronavirus has a contagion factor of 2”. The term “contagion factor” is not part of the scientific vocabulary, but it appears to refer to the reproduction number (R0)—a measure of how quickly an infection could spread through a community. Joseph Eisenberg, professor and chair of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, explains the concept of R0 in this article published in The Conversation:, “R0 represents an important concept in epidemiology and is a crucial part of public health planning during an outbreak, like the current coronavirus epidemic spreading outward from China. …, The basic reproduction number represents the maximum epidemic potential of a pathogen. It describes what would happen if an infectious person were to enter a fully susceptible community, and therefore is an estimate based on an idealized scenario.”, However, the reproduction number is not static. As Eisenberg goes on to explain:, “The effective reproduction number depends on the population’s current susceptibility. This measure of transmission potential is likely lower than the basic reproduction number, based on factors like whether some of the people are vaccinated against the disease, or whether some people have immunity due to prior exposure with the pathogen. Therefore, the effective R0 changes over time and is an estimate based on a more realistic situation within the population., It’s important to realize that both the basic and effective R0 are situation-dependent. It’s affected by the properties of the pathogen, such as how infectious it is. It’s affected by the host population—for instance, how susceptible people are due to nutritional status or other illnesses that may compromise one’s immune system. And it’s affected by the environment, including things like demographics, socioeconomic and climatic factors.”, The transmissibility of COVID-19 is still being studied by scientists. A review published on 13 February 2020 shows that the basic reproduction number currently ranges from approximately 2 to 6.51. The number indicates the number of individuals in a susceptible population expected to become infected by a single infected individual. Therefore the claim that “coronavirus has a contagion factor of 2” gives a false and misleading impression that the transmissibility of the new coronavirus has already been confirmed., The claim that “coronavirus has a cure rate of 99.7% for those under age 50 that it infects” is misleading. As Lead Stories reported, there is no cure for the coronavirus yet, although many people do recover from it. A report by the Chinese Centers for Disease Control showed that case fatality rate for 44,672 confirmed cases through 11 February 2020 was 2.3%. This rate stood at 0.4% for those aged 40-49 and trended downwards for younger patients., Snopes, Lead Stories, and Reuters fact-checked identical or related claims. Snopes stated that the claim that “a major disease outbreak occurred in “every election year” since 2004” is false. Lead Stories stated that “It is not known whether novel coronavirus has a survival rate of 99.7%”, while Reuters labeled the claim that “every election year has a disease” as partly false., @: U.S. Congressional elections (which are federal level elections) occur every two years, but special elections can be held in any year to fill unexpected vacancies. Hence, every year is either a planned or potential election year at the federal level. The image does not specify whether it is referring to federal or state elections, so if one counts state elections as well, then every year in the U.S. is always an election year for at least some states., #: See this article in The Conversation for an explanation of what defines a Public Health Emergency of International Concern., Health Feedback has produced a number of other claim reviews on COVID-19. You can view them here., 2019-nCoV \xa0Coronavirus \xa0COVID-19 \xa0Respiratory infections, Published on: 07 Mar 2020 | Editor: Flora Teoh, Health Feedback is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to science education. Our reviews are crowdsourced directly from a community of scientists with relevant expertise. 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No, not every U.S. election year has had a disease outbreak and COVID-19 transmissibility is unconfirmed - Health Feedback