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The more people these superspreader spread the disease to the worse the pandemic will become.

How do you reformulate the bolded part? I want to keep "the more people gets the disease" so I can use parallelism, but I can't find a good way to reformulate the sentence. And the sentence as it is now doesn't sound too idiomatic.

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    You could leave out 'people' and 'to': The more these superspreaders spread the disease the worse the pandemic will become.
    – Old Brixtonian
    Commented Jul 31, 2021 at 6:46
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    @SyedDanishAnwar No, you can't. A disease is spread to people, so to can't be omitted.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jul 31, 2021 at 10:09
  • Unless you are not talking about the people who are getting the disease "Mosquitoes spread malaria" -> "Mosquitoes spread the disease". No need for "to" there.
    – user139882
    Commented Jul 31, 2021 at 11:01
  • @Paribus Ceteris: Ok, now I am confused. Who is right Kate or Old Brixtonian? Can you provide a citation about leaving to after 'spread the disease'?
    – Syed Danish Anwar
    Commented Jul 31, 2021 at 11:05
  • I believe that I have found the answer. Spread is a transitive verb that takes direct object without any preposition. So, I believe Paribus Ceteris and Old Brixtonian are right while Kate is wrong. In this case my suggestions were correct i.e. The more people these superspreader spread the disease, the more strain there will be on the health care system. And, the more people these superspreader spread the disease, the more difficult it will be to control the pandemic.
    – Syed Danish Anwar
    Commented Jul 31, 2021 at 12:14

2 Answers 2

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It's unclear to me if you are talking about superspreader events or people. Assuming you explain what superspreaders are before the phrase you can get away with just:

For events, something like this:

The more superspreader events happen, the worse the pandemic becomes

For people, something like this:

The more the superspreader people spread the disease, the worse the pandemic becomes

or, assuming that going about their lives implies the spread of the disease:

The more the superspreader people go about their lives, the worse the pandemic becomes

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I don't think there's many good ways to reformulate the sentence if you want to keep it as "the more X happens, the worse this will become." If you want to keep it that way I think the best way would be to say "The more people that are infected at these superspreaders, the worse the pandemic becomes."

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