CoronaTalk: Super-spreaders in the Corona Epidemics

Speaker: Kim Sneppen from NBI

Title: Super-spreaders in the Corona Epidemics

Abstract: Recently a powerful example of a replicating nano-machinery entered our society. In principle it’s just a normal disease, that one attempt to model with 3 or 4 simple coupled equations with 2 important parameters: a timescale, and a replication factor (the famous R0). And then one tries to guess how changes in society changes R0 and perhaps adopt some more or less strong lock-down measures.However, this virus has more “personality” than that. It behaves differently in different persons, and persons behave differently. Perhaps only a few of us infect a lot, while most do not infect so much.I will discuss this and other aspects of Covid-19 in perspective of models that describe heterogeneous individuals in a society.In particular we find that that mitigating superspreading opportunities opens forsimple ways to mitigate Covid-19 and prevent second waves.