Before revision:  Inherent to this strategy is the assumption that with increasing mitigation strength the peak of the epidemic curve continuously decreases. We show that in any setting, where intervention measures include suspect testing and contact tracing, this assumption is incorrect and the process is discontinuous. This discontinuity is linked to a super-exponential growth phase and it considerably raises the stakes in epidemic control: The decisiveness of mitigation measures is not merely a question of 'flattening the curve' anymore but it sets the dividing line between effective suppression and a catastrophic outbreak .
After revision:  Inherent to this strategy is the assumption that with increasing mitigation strength the peak of the epidemic transition if testing capacities are limited: Instead of continuous the response to countermeasures becomes discontinuous and rather than following the conventional exponential growth, the outbreak accelerates and scales super-exponentially during an intermediate period. As a consequence, containment measures either suffice to stop the outbreak at low total case numbers or fail catastrophically if marginally too weak, thus implying large uncertainties in reliably estimating overall epidemic dynamics, both during initial phases and during second wave scenarios .