# SARS-CoV-2 **Entity class:** Virus **SARS-CoV-2** is the coronavirus that causes [[wiki/COVID-19|COVID-19]]. It spreads principally through infectious respiratory particles and can be transmitted before symptoms appear or by people who remain asymptomatic, making direct observation of the complete transmission network impossible. That partial observability made SARS-CoV-2 a demanding test case for [[wiki/Network Epidemiology|network epidemiology]], [[wiki/Contact Tracing|contact tracing]], latent-state estimation, ensemble forecasting, mobility analysis, genomic surveillance, and intervention modeling. ## Relationships - **causes:** [[wiki/COVID-19|COVID-19]]. - **modeled through:** [[wiki/UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium|UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium]], [[wiki/Meyers Lab|Meyers Lab]], and [[wiki/Texas Advanced Computing Center|TACC]]. - **analytic methods:** [[wiki/Contact Tracing|Contact Tracing]], [[wiki/Network Epidemiology|Network Epidemiology]], and [[wiki/Public Health Modeling|Public Health Modeling]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) — World Health Organization](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/coronavirus-disease-(covid-19)) (updated 2025-11-27; accessed 2026-09-23). **As of:** 2026-09-23