Christian AlthausKonto zweryfikowane

Assuming that around half of those cases are infectious and another half carry the new variant, there could be around 25 cases with the new variant in Switzerland. What is the probability that they establish a sustained transmission chain in Switzerland? 4/n

The effective reproduction number in Switzerland is arguably slightly above 1 at the moment. For Re = 1.05, we obtain a probability of 70% that the new variant will spread in Switzerland. For Re = 1.1, the probability would be 91%. 6/n https://sciencetaskforce.ch/epidemiologische-lagebeurteilung-21-dezember-2020/ …

But there is more to it. The equation above assumes that the number of secondary cases are geometrically distributed (k = 1). However, #SARSCoV2 exhibits superspreading and the number of secondary cases is highly overdispersed (k ~ 0.5). 7/n https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.4.2000058 …

That means that many infected cases do not transmit at all, and only a few infected individuals have the potential to initiate a sustained transmission chain. 8/n