This talk is concerned with the following epidemic process: A set of nodes is partitioned into three states: susceptible, infectious, and recovered. We start with a single infectious node. Proceeding in rounds whose length is antiproportional to the population size, a fixed amount of nodes are drawn independently at random. If at least one of the selected nodes is infectious, every susceptible node in the sample becomes infected. Moreover, any infectious vertex recovers independently at a constant rate. If the expected amount of infections caused by single node is less than one, the epidemic dies out quickly and leaves almost the entire population untouched. If it is above one, either the infection dies out quickly or a large outbreak occurs, during which a non-vanishing fraction of the population is affected. Moreover, if enough nodes are infectious at the same time, the system’s behaviour is essentially deterministic.