Abstract
Short-term and large-scale full-population virus testing is crucial in containing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. However, the uneven distribution of health service facilities in terms of space and size may lead to prolonged crowding during testing, thus increasing the chance of virus cross-infection. Therefore, appropriate control of crowd exposure time in large-scale virus testing should be an important goal in the layout of urban community health facilities. This paper uses the Quanta concept and Wells-Riley model to define the “certain-exposure time” under low cross-infection rate. Then, an agent-based simulation model was used to simulate the reasonable screening efficiency of community health service facilities during certain-exposure time at different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and under different screening processes. Eventually, the screening efficiency was evaluated for all community health service centers in Wuhan. During the early period of the pandemic, 23.13% of communities failed to complete virus testing of community residents within 2 h of certain-exposure time, leaving approximately 56.07% of the population unscreened; during the later period of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 53% of communities and 75% of residents could not be screened. The results can pinpoint the distribution of community health service centers with inadequate screening capacity, facilitate targeted policymaking and planning, and effectively curb COVID-19 cross-infection during screening.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has swept through the world and caused great casualties and economic losses
Based on the testing process and voting data of the early COVID-19 pandemic period, it can be inferred that about 101,700 people out of 10.58 million residents in Wuhan during the COVID-19 pandemic had a complete set of tests, from 2 temperature measurements to throat swab, blood sampling to CT scan
Considering the uncertainty of the length of each step in the clinic flow and the subsequent step of the Subject’s behavior, the simulation was repeated 30 times for each assumed service efficiency, and the average service efficiency of community health service centers was checked to see if it coincided with the curve
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has swept through the world and caused great casualties and economic losses. China’s experience in combating the epidemic has demonstrated that mass virus testing can effectively detect infected cases and potential transmitters and assess the overall situation of pandemic prevention and control in urban areas [1,2,3]. A reasonable layout of community health service facilities and an efficient testing process have a significant impact on reducing the infection rate of respiratory infectious diseases under major epidemics. By combining and correlating the findings of several studies, it can be concluded that reducing the exposure time of people in public places (e.g., hospitals) that may contain infected persons can significantly reduce the chance of infection, with respiratory infectious diseases including COVID-19 [7,8].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
