Before revision: Case isolation and contact tracing is a widely-used intervention method for controlling epidemic outbreaks. Here, we argue that the effectiveness of contact tracing and isolation is likely underestimated by existing studies because they do not take into account the different forms of heterogeneity and sampling biases from the network structure.
After revision: Case isolation and contact tracing is a key tool for case discovery and control. However, although contact tracing has been performed widely, the mathematical understanding of contact tracing and isolation is likely underestimated by existing studies because they do not take into account the different forms of heterogeneity and sampling biases from the network structure.