For our main analysis, we use simulated pandemic influenza data for Scotland. In brief, the pandemic model [29] is a stochastic, spatially structured, individual-based discrete time simulation. For the analyses carried out in this paper, the model pandemic outbreaks were run with a basic reproduction rate R 0 of 1.7 and a generation time of 3 days. (The R 0 value used here is slightly higher than what has been reported from various analyses [31] of the 2008-09 influenza A(H1N1)v outbreak data. But we have used a range of pandemic case reporting rates as discussed below.) Full model details are given in the Supplementary Information of [10, 29] .