Scientists from the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Warsaw have found that the main reason for the exponential increase in the incidence of COVID-19 and the pandemic was the so-called super-spreaders – infected people who are more likely to infect healthy people. This is reported in an article published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
At the very beginning of the spread of SARS-CoV-2, some researchers suggested that the coronavirus reproduction index (the average number of people who become infected from one sick person) is 3.8, indicating a possible start of a pandemic. However, the results of computer simulations showed that in March and April 2020 this figure could reach 11, provided that there were super-distributors.
In super-spreading, infected people attend a mass event, where many healthy people are infected at once. The pandemic starts slowly, but will accelerate many times over if super-distributors attend football matches or concerts. This is confirmed by the fact that when Spain and Italy imposed restrictions, preventing large numbers of people from gathering, the rate of new infections slowed sharply.
