Superspreaders

The key is that not all of us are infected equally, and those who are infectious are not all equally infectious. It’s nothing to do with individual physiology and everything to do with location and positioning, as the Telegraph reports today -

By applying a mathematical model to reported outbreaks of the disease outside China, they estimated that 80 per cent of all secondary transmissions were caused by a small fraction of infected individuals – around 10 percent.

The risk is in strenuous or energetic activities with more rapid, deeper breathing in crowded closed or indoor situations. A mosh pit is very high risk, the Bodleian library much less so. Groundworkers, brickies and scaffolders (provided they don’t crowd into the mess rooms) are safe on site, second fix joiners, sparkies and painters less so. And if you want to get around London, I’d suggest the upper deck of one of those open-top tourist buses.

But for most of us, it’s our most common and uniting experience that may never be the same again – the pub. They’ve re-opened here, but table service only, not more than four to a table and bookings are needed. The whole point about going to the pub is (a) it’s spontaneous and (b) the opportunity to meet new people, expose yourself to social interaction and to strengthen bonds of identity and community. We have to pin our hopes on a vaccine to get back to anything like normal.