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Mechanistic modelling of COVID-19 and the impact of lockdowns on a short-time scale
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10 (2021), PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10, p e0258084 (2021), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2021.
-
Abstract
- Background To mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, some countries have adopted more stringent non-pharmaceutical interventions in contrast to those widely used. In addition to standard practices such as enforcing curfews, social distancing, and closure of non-essential service industries, other non-conventional policies also have been implemented, such as the total lockdown of fragmented regions, which are composed of sparsely and highly populated areas. Methods In this paper, we model the movement of a host population using a mechanistic approach based on random walks, which are either diffusive or super-diffusive. Infections are realised through a contact process, whereby a susceptible host is infected if in close spatial proximity of the infectious host with an assigned transmission probability. Our focus is on a short-time scale (∼ 3 days), which is the average time lag time before an infected individual becomes infectious. Results We find that the level of infection remains approximately constant with an increase in population diffusion, and also in the case of faster population dispersal (super-diffusion). Moreover, we demonstrate how the efficacy of imposing a lockdown depends heavily on how susceptible and infectious individuals are distributed over space. Conclusion Our results indicate that on a short-time scale, the type of movement behaviour does not play an important role in rising infection levels. Also, lock-down restrictions are ineffective if the population distribution is homogeneous. However, in the case of a heterogeneous population, lockdowns are effective if a large proportion of infectious carriers are distributed in sparsely populated sub-regions.
- Subjects :
- Diffusion (acoustics)
Viral Diseases
Spatial Epidemiology
Pulmonology
Epidemiology
Science
Population
Distribution (economics)
Research and Analysis Methods
Global Health
Models, Biological
Infectious Disease Epidemiology
law.invention
Respiratory Disorders
Medical Conditions
Mathematical and Statistical Techniques
Population Metrics
law
Econometrics
Medicine and Health Sciences
Humans
Public and Occupational Health
education
Pandemics
Population Density
education.field_of_study
Multidisciplinary
Population Biology
business.industry
Mathematical Models
Social distance
Simulation and Modeling
COVID-19
Biology and Life Sciences
Covid 19
Geography
Transmission (mechanics)
Infectious Diseases
Susceptible individual
Scale (social sciences)
Random Walk
Quarantine
Respiratory Infections
Biological dispersal
Medicine
business
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 16
- Issue :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....f2b2fbea406088c7011d0f7889295c2a