claim: Every election year has a disease; coronavirus has a contagion factor of 2
evidence: The image, which appears in numerous Facebook posts, shows a handwritten sign that reads, in part, "Every election year has a disease." It then lists: "SARS-2004 Avian-2008 Swine-2010 MERS-2012 Ebola-2014 Zika-2016 Ebola-2018 Corona-2020" [...] The posts also claim the novel coronavirus "has a contagion factor of 2." This refers to the number of people to which an infected person can transmit the disease, also known as the R0 number. The WHO estimates this number to be 1.4 to 2.5 for COVID-19, but estimates vary because the disease is so new. The posts use upper-range estimates for the contagion factor of the other diseases. It says that SARS has an R0 of 4. According to the WHO, SARS has an R0 in the range of 2 to 4. The posts also claim that the R0 for measles is 18. Measles is most often cited as having an R0 range of 12 to 18, and studies have found that estimates could vary more widely.