04-22-2020, 12:13 PM
(04-22-2020, 11:05 AM)Snorlax94 Wrote: Yes and no. Ro is an average. If the Ro is 3, it does not mean each infected person will spread it to exactly 3 people. Some will spread it to 0 people, some will spread it to hundreds or thousands. Had the first cases attended concerts, soirees, ski lodges, and mega churches in late January, things could have been much worse.
Fair point; this happened in South Korea with a patient who caused a large outbreak through a church. Early in an outbreak, when there are few patients infected, obviously the early spread is highly dependent on the characteristics of the early infected patients. One super-spreader among a dozen people who are infected in the early stages of a pandemic will have an out-sized influence on the early course of the outbreak. Conversely, if you have a couple of non-spreaders early, you can significantly delay the onset of the outbreak. That's why a lot of the plots of the outbreak start with cumulative cases after the number of cases exceeds a certain minimum (10 or 100, for example).
BC