Individual Variation in Infectiousness of Coronavirus 2019 Implies Difficulty in Control

Abstract

We showed that the individual variation in infectiousness (the number of secondary cases of a typical index case) of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) probably have a higher k around 0.8 which is higher than that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) 0.16, but close to that of 1918 pandemic influenza 0.9. This means that COVID-19 is more difficult to control and relatively easy to sustain.

Note: Funding: DH was supported by General Research Fund (15205119) of Research Grants Council of Hong Kong and an Alibaba-Hong Kong Polytechnic University Collaborative Research project. The funding agencies had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Conflict of Interest: DH was supported by an Alibaba (China) - Hong Kong Polytechnic University Collaborative Research project. Other authors declare no competing interests.

Keywords: COVID-19, basic reproductive number, dispersion, negative binomial, mitigation