Stopping the SuperSpreader Epidemic, Part II: MERS Goes Pandemic

TL;DR

This paper refits SuperSpreader epidemic models to MERS data, predicting a potential pandemic, and discusses modeling challenges and methodologies for analyzing such epidemics.

Contribution

It introduces refined SuperSpreader models fitted to MERS data, predicting pandemic potential and addressing modeling realism and fitting issues.

Findings

MERS likely to become pandemic under current conditions

Refined SS models fit to recent MERS data

Discussion of modeling challenges for SS epidemics

Abstract

In a paper of August 2013, I discussed the so-called SuperSpreader (SS) epidemic model and emphasized that it has dynamics differing greatly from the more-familiar uniform (or Poisson) textbook model. In that paper, SARS in 2003 was the representative instance and it was suggested that MERS may be another. In April 2014, MERS incident cases showed a spectacular spike (going from a handful in the previous April to more than 260 in that month of 2014) reminiscent of a figure I published nine months earlier. Here I refit the two-level and several variant SS models to incident data from January 1, 2013--April 30, 2014 and conclude that MERS will go pandemic (all other factors remaining the same). In addition, I discuss a number of model-realism and fitting methodology issues relevant to analysing SS epidemics.