We collected information on demographic characteristics, exposure history, and illness timelines of laboratory-confirmed cases of NCIP that had been reported by January 22, 2020. We described characteristics of the cases and estimated the key epidemiologic time-delay distributions. In the early period of exponential growth, we estimated the epidemic doubling time and the basic reproductive number. RESULTSAmong the first 425 patients with confirmed NCIP, the median age was 59 years and 56% were male. The majority of cases (55%) with onset before January 1, 2020, were linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, as compared with 8.6% of the subsequent cases. The mean incubation period was 5.2 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.1 to 7.0), with the 95th percentile of the distribution at 12.5 days. In its early stages, the epidemic doubled in size every 7.4 days. With a mean serial interval of 7.5 days (95% CI, 5.3 to 19), the basic reproductive number was estimated to be 2.2 (95% CI, 1.4 to 3.9). CONCLUSIONSOn the basis of this information, there is evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred among close contacts since the middle of December 2019. Considerable efforts to reduce transmission will be required to control outbreaks if similar dynamics apply elsewhere. Measures to prevent or reduce transmission should be implemented in populations at risk. (Funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and others.) a bs tr ac t Early Transmission Dynamics

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We find a natural construction of a large class of symmetric graphs from point-and block-transitive 1-designs. The graphs in this class can be characterized as G-symmetric graphs whose vertex sets admit a G-invariant partition B of block size at least 3 such that, for any two blocks B, C of B, either there is no edge between B and C, or there exists only one vertex in B not adjacent to any vertex in C. The special case where the quotient graph B of relative to B is a complete graph occurs if and only if the 1-design needed in the construction is a G-doubly transitive and G-block-transitive 2-design, and in this case we give an explicit classification of when G is a doubly transitive projective group or an affine group containing the affine general group. Examples of such graphs include cross ratio graphs studied recently by Gardiner, Praeger and Zhou and some other graphs with vertices the (point, line)-flags of the projective or affine geometry.