Lockdown as an Intervention Measure to Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19: a modeling study

ABSTRACT

Abstract INTRODUCTION: This work aims to develop a biomathematical transmission model of COVID-19, in the State of Sergipe, Brazil, to estimate the distribution of cases over time and project the impact on the spread of the epidemic outbreak due to interventions and control measures over the local population. METHODS: This is an epidemiological mathematical modeling study conducted to analyze the dynamics of the accumulated cases of COVID-19, which used a logistic growth model that adds a term of withdrawal of individuals as a control measure. Three possible COVID-19 propagation scenarios were simulated based on three different rates of withdrawal of individuals. They were adjusted with real data of the infected and measures of control over the population. RESULTS: The lockdown would be the best scenario, with a lower incidence of infected people, when compared to the other measures. The number of infected people would grow slowly over the months, and the number of symptomatic individuals in this scenario would be 40,265 cases. We noticed that the State of Sergipe is still in the initial stage of the disease in the scenarios. It was possible to observe that the peak of cases and the equilibrium, in the current situation of social isolation, will occur when reaching the new support capacity, at the end of August in approximately 1,171,353 infected individuals. CONCLUSIONS: We established that lockdown is the intervention with the highest ability to mitigate the spread of the virus among the population.