The thing about R0 values is that they are averages. And to explain why that makes a difference, we need to talk about Coronaviruses. Before 2019-nCoV, the most notorious Coronaviruses were MERS and SARS. MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome, has had several small outbreaks since it was first discovered in 2012, and while very severe in terms of mortality (the case fatality rate is around 30 to 40 percent), the virus’s R0 is very low. And then there’s SARS. Because while SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, caused a huge uproar in its heyday of 2002-3, good old fashioned...