I've been publicly wondering for a while why the spread of the pandemic is so uneven. This paper has me pretty persuaded that the Japanese public health people were right, and spread is entirely dominated by a few superspreading events. https://covid.idmod.org/data/Stochasticity_heterogeneity_transmission_dynamics_SARS-CoV-2.pdf …
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I'm saying this not to convince anyone, but because people were accusing me of being coy when I said I had no working theory. I didn't, and now I do. I'm looking forward to what the scientisticians come up with in support or against it.
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The key implication of the theory is that most sick people don't pass the disease on to others, but those who do are incredibly infectious. One consequence of this would be that the entire "anonymous contact tracing app" effort is completely futile, one reason I like the theory
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The bigger consequence is that if we can understand the nature of the superspreading events, it's possible the pandemic could be stopped very quickly. Optimism is off-brand for me, but this is the first explanation I've seen that fits the observations well and it forces my hand
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Pinboard Retweeted Marc Lipsitch
Prescient tweet:https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1228376643720249345 …
Pinboard added,
Marc LipsitchVerified account @mlipsitch2) There could be a higher degree of superspreading than has been appreciated ("dispersion in R0") which could mean that many locations outside Wuhan could "get lucky" and escape major onward transmission. https://hopkinsidd.github.io/nCoV-Sandbox/DispersionExploration.html … .Show this thread2 replies 3 retweets 16 likesShow this thread -
Still don't advise anyone go on a retired meatpackers' cruise. Plenty more room for unknown unknowns
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What does a world look like if is optimized to avoid this kind of spreading mechanism? Japan. That's not so bad. You can get a haircut and go drinking. No choir practice, but they won't put a padlock on the swing set, either, and old people can come out of hiding.
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Oh, but the implications for sports are the worst, especially if conjectures about shouting/loud talking as a factor in spread turn out to have substance. Hope everyone likes golf!
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Replying to @Pinboard
I mean it seems that Japanese style restrictions (masks and distancing) may keep the virus from spreading rapidly from a low level. It's not clear that it works in a place like the US with a huge amount of circulating virus.
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The US is a heterogeneous place, so even if it works only below a threshold it's a huge step forward. But you are right that there are many open questions.
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