June 2020: Stern: covid19 super-spreaders in Israel
A new study led by Dr. Adi Stern (Life Sciences) found that a small percentage of "super-spreading” patients with Covid19 in Israel is responsible for the majority of infections.
A new study led by Dr. Adi Stern, Edmond J. Safra Center member (Life Sciences), found that a small percentage of so-called “super-spreading” patients with Covid19 in Israel is responsible for the majority of infections.
The study, that followed the mutations of the Corona virus in Israeli patients, found that 1-10% of the patients are responsible for 80% of the infections in Israel. While the average number of new individuals infected by the same patient is 2-3, the study finds that transmission heterogeneity is large, and this is what explains why a small number of infected patients are responsible for infecting a much larger number of individuals. Dr. Stern noted that the reasons to this phenomenon could be biological and social. She commented that similar super-spreading phenomena were reported in studies around the world.
Read the interview with Dr. Stern in the online newspaper Ynet as well as the preprint (non-peer-reviewed) here.
The study was also featured in the newspapers Haaretz, The Marker, Maariv, TV channel 12 and more.