
What's a Coronavirus Superspreader? - fortran77
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/15/1003576/whats-a-coronavirus-superspreader/
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gmuslera
A lot of what makes a person a superspreader is not biology but behavior. They
happen to be in a place with a lot of other people, they didn't maintained
distance, didn't used facemasks, and probably neither the people that got
infected did.

The point is that superspreader have the same behavior elements of most of the
other people on those places, and each of them potentially will go to more big
meetings and parties taking few if any measures to avoid keep infeting. You
are dealing with clusters of superspreaders, not individuals, that may infect
"normal" people as well as not all their contacts with other people will be in
big parties.

Good policies to prevent the spreading of the disease should take those
clusters and cultures into account.

~~~
jhayward
Right. There aren’t really “superspreaders” as much as “superspreading
events”.

It takes a combination of 1) high viral presentation, 2) breath activity that
generates lots of droplets, such as singing, public speaking, shouting,
exercise, cough or sneeze, and 3) a location where lots of unprotected people
will breath the same air for a significant period of time.

Preventing the 1st is difficult, we don’t know who is infectious. The 2nd is
where masks as source prevention are critical. The 3rd is where social
distance and 3C interventions help.

~~~
clairity
> 'There aren’t really “superspreaders” as much as “superspreading events”.'

the fundamental attribution error strikes again.

also, you only need masks when you can't effectively distance (i.e., at
potential superspreader events, like inside a bar, at a party, etc.).

socialize this one key modification to the rules, and you'd get more
compliance and less pushback, with at least the same reduced transmission
rate.

you don't need to lock down anything, just distance, and when you can't, mask.
self-quarantine when sick. easy, and anxiety-free to boot.

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tlb
> shedding more virus than is normal, but we still don’t know what would
> trigger this, let alone how to identify it through practical means.

What's the technical path to a airborne virus monitor? Something that sucks in
air and detects viruses, and sounds an alarm like a smoke or carbon monoxide
detector.

It doesn't have to be very specific to COVID-19, so you probably don't need
RNA sequencing. Any significant number of viruses (except possibly a few
harmless ones on an allow-list) should be reason to evacuate a building.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Wouldn't the system somehow need to detect the virus at incredibly low PPM,
and rely on the virus being in that section of the room? Especially with
coronavirus, which travels via water droplets and falls to the ground fairly
quickly, you could have a spreader walk through the room without it hitting
the device.

I'd also expect that the list of viruses that are worth evacuation over is
much much shorter than the sum of all viruses in the air at one time. (Looked
it up, looks like 219 viruses that can even just infect us[1] vs hundreds of
millions [2])

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427559/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427559/)

[2] [https://www.virology.ws/2013/09/06/how-many-viruses-on-
earth...](https://www.virology.ws/2013/09/06/how-many-viruses-on-earth/)

~~~
foobarian
False positives would really mess this up. Can you imagine all the Ebola
office fire drills?

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
It'd be absolutely terrifying - a totally invisible threat setting off an
alarm that's telling you there's a danger in your immediate vicinity. And then
what? The office building fire drill, where hundreds of people all trudge down
20 stories together in the claustrophobic confines of a concrete stairwell
along with the unconsciously contagious? Or lock down the room until someone
can decontaminate the whole thing?

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dqpb
> _coronavirus transmission more or less follows the 80 /20 Pareto
> Principle...while another looking at transmission in Shenzhen, China, pegs
> the numbers closer to 80/10_

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s1artibartfast
While possible, and likely, there isn't necessarily a difference between the
biology and behavior super-spreaders due to environment and chance.

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adjkant
This seems like yet another reason for using universal contact tracing apps,
assuming we can execute on the privacy aspect. What's going on with that
currently? Have we just given up?

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4b11b4
"Super spreader" reminds me of the language "super predator" which was used to
depict black kids as violent rapists in US media.

Edit: Sounds like some good ol media designed to get attention via fear.

There might be a few people carelessly running around spreading the virus.
There are a few documented cases of this happening early on. Possibly there
are some individuals who will do this again in time.

~~~
giardini
It is a broad brush used to paint fear into the population. Anyone _could_ be
a superspreader so you must act as if _all_ people are. Why? b/c you don't
know who's a "superspreader". Yes panic, now!

The article defines a superspreader, but the definition isn't useful:

>" _a generic term for an unusually contagious individual who’s been infected
with disease. In the context of the coronavirus, scientists haven’t narrowed
down how many infections someone needs to cause to qualify as a superspreader,
but generally speaking it far exceeds the two to three individuals researchers
initially estimated the average infected patient could infect._ "

Hmm, so granny kisses 2 grandchildren, she's not a superspreader but if she
kisses 3, watch out! Pretty vague definition here.

Later the article states:

> _" What makes someone a superspreader? We don’t yet know what it is about
> the biology of some people that causes them to be superspreaders. It might
> have something to do with increased viral loads and shedding more virus than
> is normal, but we still don’t know what would trigger this, let alone how to
> identify it through practical means."_<

So it's a term they haven't established a definition for yet, a term for
people they cannot identify, and, most of all, it is useless not only for
epidemiologists' demonstrably invalid models which did not work before and
continue to not work, nor is it useful for anyone else except scaremongers.

This article is beneath MIT. Shame!

~~~
thomaslord
This is a long-used term that isn't specific to COVID-19, which describes a
legitimate medical phenomenon with a wide historical basis. Ever head of
Typhoid Mary? She was a superspreader.

Interestingly, people who claim everything about COVID-19 is a conspiracy by
the media (or the elites, or whoever) to control the populace with fear are
significantly more likely to be superspreaders. Why? Because all the simple,
moderately-inconvenient precautions they refuse to take legitimately do slow
the spread of the disease. Someone who frequently goes within 6 feet of other
people while not wearing a mask and leaves their home more frequently than
necessary has a much higher chance of getting the disease, a much higher
chance of transmitting the disease to each person they come into contact with
while contagious, and also a much higher number of contacts to potentially
infect.

The term is actually incredibly useful, even on an individual level - if I'm
considering who I'm willing to interact with, someone who's come into close
contact with 500 people in the past week while not wearing a mask is
significantly more dangerous to me and my loved ones than someone who has come
into contact with 50 people at a distance of 6 feet or more while wearing a
mask.

