There is also bound to be talk of the super-spreaders (also known as super shedders for the presumed increased viral load they shed), because that does seem to be an actual thing. Its shown up in the past such as with SARS, on occasions when a particular person and location is tied to an outbreak and they end up being able to trace a whole chain of resulting infections. I expect such phenomenon are presumed to occur in other sorts of outbreaks that never end up being contained as well, such as influenzas that end up being pandemics/epidemics and then the 'normal' flu in 'normal' flu seasons.
I havent checked the UK press for any coronavirus super-spreader stories yet, but I've already seen one on the CNN website.
Wuhan virus 'super spreader' alarms disease detectives
So yeah, that average figures for how many people an infected person goes on to infect proably dont give a fair picture, as some individuals can do way more than their fair share of spreading.
As for various 'horse has already bolted' sentiments I have expressed in recent days, I feel like qualifying them again. If this new coronavirus has a similar levels of ease with which it spreads as SARS or MERS, then eventual containment is still a goal. The horse has bolted but it can be brought back eventually, at least to the extent that this coronavirus does not end up as a permanent fixture around the world and in the human population at large. If its much better at sustaining human to human transmission than that, then its a whole different kettle of fish. Its a bit like the difference between H5N1 bird flu and H1N1 2009 swine flu. They both had the ability to go from animal to human, and then for some human to human transmission. But so far the concerning bird flu strains didnt become amazing at doing the human to human spread, so it was possible to contain the outbreaks. But the swine flu had no such limitations and so containment was not plausible, and we had a pandemic.