PARETO AND COVID

You may say, but what does Pareto have to do with COVID?

A recent research published by Il Gazzettino reports:

"The "engine” that drives the pandemic Covid-19 it is made up of numerous pieces and mechanisms: coexistence under the same roof, group activities, crowded environments, but also elusive asymptomatic people, super spreaders and contexts that amplify infections. 

The experts from the company analyze them one by one Johns Hopkins University di Baltimore, in an article published in Science.

Most of the infections are at home

Reviewing the most recent scientific evidence, the researchers underline how the majority of infections occur at home.

Cohabitants are six times more likely to be infected than other close contacts. 

The most exposed are the spouses of the sick and the elderly who live in families with younger people. 

The risk is also high in hospitals, nursing homes, dormitories and prisons, where contacts are repeated and close, generally between older people.

Asymptomatic, superspreaders and amplified transmission

At community level, the transmission of the infection is greatly affected by the action of asymptomatic people, who, compared to the sick, continue to circulate despite having a comparable viral load. 

The spread of the virus can become superspreader in particular contexts such as in choirs, department stores and religious events, where people have multiple close contacts in a short period of time. 

There are also contexts in which transmission can be amplified if multiple infections occur one after the other in rapid succession, as has already been seen in slaughterhouses, churches and schools.

The amplification of infections, added to the action of super spreaders, could explain why il 10% of those positive for the SarsCoV2 virus are responsible for 80% of infections. 

It is the so-called "overdispersion" phenomenon, already observed in other diseases such as flu and measles, whereby the majority of those infected do not transmit the virus in a significant way, so a good number of cases must be reached for the epidemic to explode clearly."

In reality Pareto envisaged the 80 – 20 ratio but, in fact, the principle is that the few have influence on the many.

Moral? Unnecessary exposures must be avoided and the now known rules must be applied.

Before asking ourselves why not do it, let's ask ourselves if it can be done another way.

It doesn't mean getting stuck at all but rather it means doing the right things.

This is useful to prevent overloading of the healthcare system and not necessarily for fear of contagion.

Ermanno Bon