Abstract
BackgroundRecent research has been conducted by various countries and regions on the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on reducing the spread of COVID19. This study evaluates the tradeoffs between potential benefits (e.g., reduction in infection spread and deaths) of NPIs for COVID19 and being homebound (i.e., refraining from interactions outside of the household).MethodsAn agent-based simulation model, which captures the natural history of the disease at the individual level, and the infection spread via a contact network assuming heterogeneous population mixing in households, peer groups (workplaces, schools), and communities, is adapted to project the disease spread and estimate the number of homebound people and person-days under multiple scenarios, including combinations of shelter-in-place, voluntary quarantine, and school closure in Georgia from March 1 to September 1, 2020.ResultsCompared to no intervention, under voluntary quarantine, voluntary quarantine with school closure, and shelter-in-place with school closure scenarios 4.5, 23.1, and 200+ homebound adult-days were required to prevent one infection, with the maximum number of adults homebound on a given day in the range of 119 K–248 K, 465 K–499 K, 5388 K-5389 K, respectively. Compared to no intervention, school closure only reduced the percentage of the population infected by less than 16% while more than doubling the peak number of adults homebound.ConclusionsVoluntary quarantine combined with school closure significantly reduced the number of infections and deaths with a considerably smaller number of homebound person-days compared to shelter-in-place.
Highlights
Recent research has been conducted by various countries and regions on the impact of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on reducing the spread of COVID19
This study evaluates the trade-offs between the public health impact measures and intervention metrics, including number of homebound people and persondays under various NPI scenarios, including variations of shelter-in-place, voluntary quarantine, and school closure
The percentage of the population infected reduced to a range of 11.86–43.16% under Scenarios 3a, 3b, 3c and 4.15–29.02% under Scenarios 4a, 4b, 4c
Summary
Recent research has been conducted by various countries and regions on the impact of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on reducing the spread of COVID19. NPIs include school closure, reducing public gatherings, social distancing, restricting travel, and People may become “homebound” (i.e., stay home and refrain from interactions in the community/workplace) due to complying with some of the NPIs (even if they do not experience symptoms), showing symptoms, or providing childcare. Despite their benefits, there are unintended consequences of NPIs, including the impact on the economy, unemployment, household spending, mobility, energy usage, etc. There is sparse research on assessing which interventions have a higher overall impact in reducing societal interactions versus the ability to reduce infection spread and adverse outcomes [8, 9, 24, 25]
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