This One Number Shows Why Measles Spreads Like Wildfire

But another factor is that the measles is an extremely contagious virus. And we mean extremely. When doctors and scientists study how diseases spread, one factor they calculate is how many people, on average, are likely to become infected through contact with just one sick person. That factor is measured by the basic reproduction number, or "R nought." And the higher that number, the more contagious the disease and the tougher it may be to contain within a population. For measles, the n...

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