Superspreading in Early Transmissions of COVID-19 in Indonesia

We estimate the basic reproduction numberℛ₀and the overdispersion parameter𝒦at two regions in Indonesia: Jakarta-Depok and Batam. Based on the first 1288 confirmed cases in both regions, we find a high degree of individual-level variation in the transmission. The basic reproduction numberℛ₀is estimated at 6.79 and 2.47, while the overdispersion parameter𝒦of a negative-binomial distribution is estimated at 0.06 and 0.2 for Jakarta-Depok and Batam, respectively. This suggests that superspreading events played a key role in the early stage of the outbreak, i.e., a small number of infected individuals are responsible for large amounts of COVID-19 transmission.