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The basic reproduction number (R 0 ), also called the basic reproduction ratio or rate or the basic reproductive rate, is an epidemiologic metric used to describe the contagiousness or transmissibility of infectious agents. R 0 is affected by numerous biological, sociobehavioral, and environmental factors that govern pathogen transmission and, therefore, is usually estimated with various types of complex mathematical models, which make R 0 easily misrepresented, misinterpreted, and misapplied. R 0 is not a biological constant for a pathogen, a rate over time, or a measure of disease severity, and R 0 cannot be modified through vaccination campaigns. R 0 is rarely measured directly, and modeled R 0 values are dependent on model structures and assumptions. Some R 0 values reported in the scientific literature are likely obsolete. R 0 must be estimated, reported, and applied with great caution because this basic metric is far from simple.
Delamater et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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