With over 50,000 cases and more than 1,300 deaths recorded to date, the spread of the coronavirus is understandably a story that is dominating the headlines worldwide.

Governments, medical professionals and even military personnel have been deployed to limit the impact of this epidemic. 

But all of their work is itself reliant on the efforts of mathematicians. But how?

Adam Kucharski is Associate Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and author of The Rules of Contagion.