Slowing a Pandemic — What We Know About Containment

With no treatment or vaccine against the coronavirus spreading from China, health authorities are relying on the kind of tools that have been used for centuries to limit or slow the spread of disease. Some of what the World Health Organization calls “non-pharmaceutical methods,” however, are being used at a scale never before seen to fight a pathogen moving rapidly around the globe. A report by the WHO cited several factors as “fundamental” to successful containment: “Extremely proactive surveil