CoVID vs Flu: clustering (superspreading)

[dmm]

There is a new overview of CoVID clustering/overdispersion/superspreading:

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/

The bottom line is: CoVID has much higher non-uniformity/clustering/superspreading than flu. This partially explains why things happen so differently and unpredictably.

Most countries are mismanaging it by trying to handle it like a flu epidemics (whereas even the optimal contact tracing strategy is quite different: for a highly clustered disease like CoVID we need to figure out not whom this infected person might have exposed, but where this infected person got it from - we need to do contact tracing backwards, not forward).

See also www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/why-do-some-covid-19-patients-infect-many-others-whereas-most-don-t-spread-virus-all

Comments

[dmm]

(Or, perhaps, I am too optimistic saying that everyone wants to move towards high adaptive capacity...)