superspreader

noun

1. A person infected with a pathogen who is responsible for spreading it to many other people.

   “In the SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] outbreak, New York forcibly quarantined a man suspected of having the disease after he refused to isolate himself. That's a real breach of liberty, but suppose he had been an irresponsible superspreader like Typhoid Mary and caused the disease to spin out of control?”

   “One of the most notorious superspreaders was Typhoid Mary, an Irish cook who was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever. […] Another well-known superspreader was Gaetan Dugas, considered patient zero for the emergence of HIV in North America; he was a promiscuous homosexual with an estimated 250 partners per annum who remained sexually active until he died at thirty-two years of age.”

   “A major concern is that with both SARS and MERS [Middle East respiratory syndrome], a few patients inexplicably became "superspreaders" who infected huge numbers of other people. At a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, in 2015, one man with MERS transmitted it to 82 patients.”

   “[S]cientists have learned a lot about airborne respiratory fluids and, in particular, what might make someone a superspreader, or superemitter. Certain attributes, such as the shape of one’s body, and certain behaviours, such as loud talking or breathing fast, appear to have a major role in spreading the disease..”

2. (also, attributive)An event or place which leads to the spread of an infectious disease to many people.

   “In June, the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union], on behalf of half a dozen detainees housed in various Orange County jails, sued the sheriff in state court, arguing that the jails were superspreaders-in-waiting: the cramped quarters, inadequate cleaning protocols, and severely limited hygiene make jails an ideal hunting ground for the virus.”

   “As school districts around the U.S. continue to grapple with whether to reopen classrooms amid the coronavirus pandemic, data shows Florida started in-person learning without turning schools into superspreaders.”

   “It [the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference] will be the largest summit ever hosted in Britain. Organizers are scrambling to make sure the conference does not morph into a superspreader event.”

   “Millions of football fans without masks have been going to games, cheering for their pro, college, high school teams. Now, at the start of the season, many epidemiologists strongly advised against this. They worried that games could become superspreaders.”

3. (broadly)A person or thing responsible for the widespread distribution of something regarded as dangerous or undesirable (for example, misinformation).

   “But whether they intend it or not, celebrities, politicians and others with large online followings can be superspreaders – not of the coronavirus but of dangerous or false information.”

   “"We have also imposed penalties on nearly two dozen additional Pages, groups or accounts linked to these 12 people," Facebook said in a blogpost titled "How we're taking action against vaccine misinformation superspreaders".”

   “The Daily Beast received a missive that Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) sent SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman on Monday, questioning whether the half-dozen disinformation superspreaders—including supplement hawker Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who had Paycheck Protection Program loans absolved this year had fulfilled all the requirements of the program.”