Overdispersion in COVID-19 increases the effectiveness of limiting nonrepetitive contacts for transmission control.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
; 118(14)2021 04 06.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33741734
ABSTRACT
Increasing evidence indicates that superspreading plays a dominant role in COVID-19 transmission. Recent estimates suggest that the dispersion parameter k for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is on the order of 0.1, which corresponds to about 10% of cases being the source of 80% of infections. To investigate how overdispersion might affect the outcome of various mitigation strategies, we developed an agent-based model with a social network that allows transmission through contact in three sectors "close" (a small, unchanging group of mutual contacts as might be found in a household), "regular" (a larger, unchanging group as might be found in a workplace or school), and "random" (drawn from the entire model population and not repeated regularly). We assigned individual infectivity from a gamma distribution with dispersion parameter k We found that when k was low (i.e., greater heterogeneity, more superspreading events), reducing random sector contacts had a far greater impact on the epidemic trajectory than did reducing regular contacts; when k was high (i.e., less heterogeneity, no superspreading events), that difference disappeared. These results suggest that overdispersion of COVID-19 transmission gives the virus an Achilles' heel Reducing contacts between people who do not regularly meet would substantially reduce the pandemic, while reducing repeated contacts in defined social groups would be less effective.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Modelos Estadísticos
/
Trazado de Contacto
/
Pandemias
/
Distanciamiento Físico
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COVID-19
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Año:
2021
Tipo del documento:
Article