A new model suggests that as lockdowns ease, other control measures such as mask use must be enhanced in order to prevent additional COVID outbreaks.
The mathematical model, developed by scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Liverpool, provides general insights about how COVID will spread under different potential control scenarios.
They considered ‘non spatial’ control measures involving facemasks, handwashing and metre-scale social distancing can all limit the number of virus particles being spread between people. The other, ‘spatial’ control measures included lockdown and travel restrictions, which reduce how far virus particles can spread. Different combinations of COVID control measures showed that non-spatial control needs to be ramped up as lockdown is lifted.
“More effective use of control measures like facemasks and handwashing would help us to stop the pandemic faster, or to get better results in halting transmission through the vaccination programme. This also means we could avoid another potential lockdown,” said Dr. Yevhen Suprunenko, a Research Associate in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and first author of the paper. The authors stress that their predictions rely on such non-spatial control measures being implemented effectively.
Their model took into account the socio-economic impact of the measures. The costs of spatial measures of lockdown increased over time, while costs for non-spatial measures decreased due to falling prices and greater availability of items such as masks, and usage becoming a habit.
“Measures such as lockdowns that limit how far potentially infected people move can have a stronger impact on controlling the spread of disease, but methods that reduce the risk of transmission whenever people mix provide an inexpensive way to supplement them,” explained co-author Dr Stephen Cornell at the University of Liverpool.
The model was derived from identifying control strategies for plant diseases threatening staple crops. Instead of the usual computer simulation model, mathematical approach allowed the authors to identify insights on how to control newly emerging infectious diseases of plants and animals.
“Our new model will help us study how different infectious diseases can spread and become endemic. This will enable us to find better control strategies, and stop future epidemics faster and more efficiently,” said co-author Professor Chris Gilligan in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences.
Source: Medical Xpress
Journal information: Analytical approximation for invasion and endemic thresholds, and the optimal control of epidemics in spatially explicit individual-based models, Journal of the Royal Society Interface,rsif.royalsocietypublishing.or … .1098/rsif.2020.0966
