Both methods assume homogenous mixing in the population, no missing data (clearly violated with the data from the Maryland communities), that a primary case experiences symptom onset prior to any cases that it infects and a completely closed system where all cases are infected by a case that has been observed. In the case of the Maryland data, where only a sample of the total number of cases was surveyed, we can observe the efficacy and robustness of these methods with sample data. Certainly results should be interpreted with caution, however, as we will show, the results that are obtained are consistent with previous estimates for influenza.