Early phylogenetic estimate of the effective reproduction number of SARS‐CoV‐2

To reconstruct the evolutionary dynamics of the 2019 novel‐coronavirus recently causing an outbreak in Wuhan, China, 52 SARS‐CoV‐2 genomes available on 4 February 2020 at Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data were analyzed. The two models used to estimate the reproduction number (coalescent‐based exponential growth and a birth‐death skyline method) indicated an estimated mean evolutionary rate of 7.8 × 10 −4 subs/site/year (range, 1.1...