We got the gang together again (2 former @IDMOD_ORG, 2 current, and a couple others) to write a (theory) paper on the impact of super spreading events (SSEs) and the impact of imperfect attempts to cut the tail off of them.
covid.idmod.org/data/Stochasti…
covid.idmod.org/data/Stochasti…
Big message I want to get across is that when SSEs may happen, we're likely to see lots of dead-end transmission which sounds great for contact tracing, but the problem is that you make up for that by having a few who infect lots.
If your contact tracing is appropriate for the average transmission rates, then you over-react often, but under-react when it matters.
Targetted responses need to be appropriate for the SSEs, not for the average.
Targetted responses need to be appropriate for the SSEs, not for the average.
Interventions like preventing large gatherings or otherwise limiting these high spreading opportunities are going to be particularly important to let our contact tracers etc keep up.
[for what it's worth we've assumed a dispersion parameter almost identical to what @jlloydsmith just reported]
And --- oops, that was 3 former @IDMOD_ORG people, 2 current and 2 others.
