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We've known when many people from many households are close together for a long time, that 1 person can spread the virus to many others. (Even before stay at home orders, states began by timidly limiting crowd sizes to 500, then eventually 50, then finally numbers like 10.)
But it's now seen that most of the spread happens at "super spreader events", and often then individuals bring the virus home and spread it to their housemates/family.
This isn't going shopping in a grocery though! It's quite unlike that.
In late February about 175 executives from around the world came to the biotechnology company Biogen’s leadership conference in Boston. Over two days, attendees shook hands, talked among themselves and shared meals. Also in attendance: the new coronavirus. Several people at the event were unknowingly infected with the microbe that causes COVID-19, and it quickly spread among others there, who then brought it home. At least 99 people ended up sick in Massachusetts alone.
Around the same time, the coronavirus was spreading among more than 100 people who went to a funeral in Albany, Ga. sparking an outbreak that soon led to the surrounding rural county posting one of the nation’s highest cumulative incidences... The next month a single individual with the disease infected 52 people during a two-and-a-half-hour choir practice in Washington State. Two people died. In Arkansas, an infected pastor and his wife passed the virus on to more than 30 attendees at church events over the course of a few days, leading to at least three deaths. And these new cases spread to 26 more people, at least one of whom died.
As scientists have learned more about COVID-19, it has become clear that so-called superspreader incidents—in which one person infects a disproportionate number of other individuals—have played an oversized role in the transmission of the virus that causes the disease. The Boston conference and the funeral in Georgia were among several superspreader events ...
In fact, research on actual cases, as well as models of the pandemic, indicate that between 10 and 20 percent of infected people are responsible for 80 percent of the coronavirus’s spread.
How ‘Superspreading’ Events Drive Most COVID-19 Spread
"Following a birthday party in Texas on May 30, one man reportedly infected 17 members of his family with the coronavirus.
Reading reports like these, you might think of the virus as a wildfire, instantly setting off epidemics wherever it goes. But other reports tell another story altogether.
In Italy, for example, scientists looked at stored samples of wastewater for the earliest trace of the virus. Last week they reported that the virus was in Turin and Milan as early as Dec. 18. But two months would pass before northern Italy’s hospitals began filling with victims of Covid-19. So those December viruses seem to have petered out.
As strange as it may seem, these reports don’t contradict each other. Most infected people don’t pass on the coronavirus to someone else. But a small number pass it on to many others in so-called superspreading events.
...
...If Covid-19 was like the flu, you’d expect the outbreaks in different places to be mostly the same size. But Dr. Kucharski and his colleagues found a wide variation. The best way to explain this pattern, they found, was that 10 percent of infected people were responsible for 80 percent of new infections. Which meant that most people passed on the virus to few, if any, others.
...
A lot of transmission seems to happen in a narrow window of time starting a couple days after infection, even before symptoms emerge. If people aren’t around a lot of people during that window, they can’t pass it along.
And certain places seem to lend themselves to superspreading. A busy bar, for example, is full of people talking loudly. Any one of them could spew out viruses without ever coughing. And without good ventilation, the viruses can linger in the air for hours.
A study from Japan this month found clusters of coronavirus cases in health care facilities, nursing homes, day care centers, restaurants, bars, workplaces, and musical events such as live concerts and karaoke parties.
Most People With Coronavirus Won’t Spread It. Why Do a Few Infect Many?
The key takeaway:
Since most transmission happens only in a small number of similar situations, it may be possible to come up with smart strategies to stop them from happening. It may be possible to avoid crippling, across-the-board lockdowns by targeting the superspreading events.
“By curbing the activities in quite a small proportion of our life, we could actually reduce most of the risk,” said Dr. Kucharski.
Most People With Coronavirus Won’t Spread It. Why Do a Few Infect Many?
But it's now seen that most of the spread happens at "super spreader events", and often then individuals bring the virus home and spread it to their housemates/family.
This isn't going shopping in a grocery though! It's quite unlike that.
In late February about 175 executives from around the world came to the biotechnology company Biogen’s leadership conference in Boston. Over two days, attendees shook hands, talked among themselves and shared meals. Also in attendance: the new coronavirus. Several people at the event were unknowingly infected with the microbe that causes COVID-19, and it quickly spread among others there, who then brought it home. At least 99 people ended up sick in Massachusetts alone.
Around the same time, the coronavirus was spreading among more than 100 people who went to a funeral in Albany, Ga. sparking an outbreak that soon led to the surrounding rural county posting one of the nation’s highest cumulative incidences... The next month a single individual with the disease infected 52 people during a two-and-a-half-hour choir practice in Washington State. Two people died. In Arkansas, an infected pastor and his wife passed the virus on to more than 30 attendees at church events over the course of a few days, leading to at least three deaths. And these new cases spread to 26 more people, at least one of whom died.
As scientists have learned more about COVID-19, it has become clear that so-called superspreader incidents—in which one person infects a disproportionate number of other individuals—have played an oversized role in the transmission of the virus that causes the disease. The Boston conference and the funeral in Georgia were among several superspreader events ...
In fact, research on actual cases, as well as models of the pandemic, indicate that between 10 and 20 percent of infected people are responsible for 80 percent of the coronavirus’s spread.
How ‘Superspreading’ Events Drive Most COVID-19 Spread
"Following a birthday party in Texas on May 30, one man reportedly infected 17 members of his family with the coronavirus.
Reading reports like these, you might think of the virus as a wildfire, instantly setting off epidemics wherever it goes. But other reports tell another story altogether.
In Italy, for example, scientists looked at stored samples of wastewater for the earliest trace of the virus. Last week they reported that the virus was in Turin and Milan as early as Dec. 18. But two months would pass before northern Italy’s hospitals began filling with victims of Covid-19. So those December viruses seem to have petered out.
As strange as it may seem, these reports don’t contradict each other. Most infected people don’t pass on the coronavirus to someone else. But a small number pass it on to many others in so-called superspreading events.
...
...If Covid-19 was like the flu, you’d expect the outbreaks in different places to be mostly the same size. But Dr. Kucharski and his colleagues found a wide variation. The best way to explain this pattern, they found, was that 10 percent of infected people were responsible for 80 percent of new infections. Which meant that most people passed on the virus to few, if any, others.
...
A lot of transmission seems to happen in a narrow window of time starting a couple days after infection, even before symptoms emerge. If people aren’t around a lot of people during that window, they can’t pass it along.
And certain places seem to lend themselves to superspreading. A busy bar, for example, is full of people talking loudly. Any one of them could spew out viruses without ever coughing. And without good ventilation, the viruses can linger in the air for hours.
A study from Japan this month found clusters of coronavirus cases in health care facilities, nursing homes, day care centers, restaurants, bars, workplaces, and musical events such as live concerts and karaoke parties.
Most People With Coronavirus Won’t Spread It. Why Do a Few Infect Many?
The key takeaway:
Since most transmission happens only in a small number of similar situations, it may be possible to come up with smart strategies to stop them from happening. It may be possible to avoid crippling, across-the-board lockdowns by targeting the superspreading events.
“By curbing the activities in quite a small proportion of our life, we could actually reduce most of the risk,” said Dr. Kucharski.
Most People With Coronavirus Won’t Spread It. Why Do a Few Infect Many?
