Correction to: Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2488-1Published online 30 June 2020

In this Article, the estimates of the pre- and post-lockdown mean reproduction number in the section ‘Reconstructing transmission chains’ were incorrect owing to an error in the script used to generate them. The values of 2.49 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.31–4.00) and 0.41 (95% CI 0.21–0.63) should have been 2.44 (95% CI 1.30–3.91) and 0.41 (95% CI 0.21–0.64) for pre- and post-lockdown, respectively. These changes do not affect the validity of the work. The script has been corrected and the repository (https://github.com/ncov-ic/SEIR_Covid_Vo) updated accordingly. The Article has been corrected online.