Superspreaders provide essential clues for mitigation of COVID-19

Although coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused severe suffering in many countries around the world, the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as policies of social distancing has been greater than models have predicted. Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that the pandemic is characterized by superspreading, where a small fraction account for the majority of infections. Capturing this phenomenon theoretically requires modeling at the scale of individuals. Using a mathematical model, we show that superspreading represents an Achilles’ heel of COVID-19, and drastically improves the efficacy of mitigations which reduce the personal contact number, even when this is done without changing the average social contact time.