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 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.
> But if so, what new does that reveal, what does it tell you that is useful and not already known? How does it help do the math?
It dramatically changes your emphasis even if you can't predict in advance.
If we have a uniform spreading, then we have to heavily lock down everything and we have to be invasive about contact tracing. We have to worry obsessively about anyone with human contact in the service industry. We have to keep people at home except for the most imperative of reasons. We have to trace even the most casual of contacts if someone gets diagnosed.
If it's mostly superspreaders, then we only really have to be careful about gatherings--sports, church, theaters, etc. We can trace in response to an outbreak because we're likely to know who is driving it. And reasonable protection measures (like wearing a mask) protect service workers against incidental contact from most contagious people.
This is the difference between massive shutdown and actually getting back to life but with some precautions.
The problem is that superspreaders are that way because they both emit high viral loads (for whatever reason) AND engage in behaviors that encourage the transmission of the diseases.
And, funny that AIDS was mentioned, because it seems like one particularly attractive, promiscuous flight attendant was responsible for a lot of the initial AIDS transmission--a classic superspreader.
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!