Fig. 1

Conceptual framework. Homogeneous and heterogeneous patterns of disease transmission require different control measures. A: Every infected individual passes on the disease to two other people on average, R0 equals two, k approaches infinity, secondary cases show a Poisson distribution with mean and variance equal to R0. As a consequence, Public Health aims at population-wide control measures. B: Infected individuals show different levels of secondary transmission, R0 equals two as in scenario A, but contrastingly k is smaller than one. Secondary cases show a Negative Binomial distribution. Public health measures can target high risk groups or settings where superspreading is likely to occur. Figure created with BioRender.com