Quantifying human mixing patterns in Chinese provinces outside Hubei after the 2020 lockdown was lifted.
BMC Infect Dis
; 22(1): 483, 2022 May 21.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-35597895
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Contact patterns play a key role in the spread of respiratory infectious diseases in human populations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the regular contact patterns of the population have been disrupted due to social distancing both imposed by the authorities and individual choices. Many studies have focused on age-mixing patterns before the COVID-19 pandemic, but they provide very little information about the mixing patterns in the COVID-19 era. In this study, we aim at quantifying human heterogeneous mixing patterns immediately after lockdowns implemented to contain COVID-19 spread in China were lifted. We also provide an illustrative example of how the collected mixing patterns can be used in a simulation study of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. METHODS ANDRESULTS:
In this work, a contact survey was conducted in Chinese provinces outside Hubei in March 2020, right after lockdowns were lifted. We then leveraged the estimated mixing patterns to calibrate a mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Study participants reported 2.3 contacts per day (IQR 1.0-3.0) and the mean per-contact duration was 7.0 h (IQR 1.0-10.0). No significant differences in average contact number and contact duration were observed between provinces, the number of recorded contacts did not show a clear trend by age, and most of the recorded contacts occurred with family members (about 78%). The simulation study highlights the importance of considering age-specific contact patterns to estimate the COVID-19 burden.CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings suggest that, despite lockdowns were no longer in place at the time of the survey, people were still heavily limiting their contacts as compared to the pre-pandemic situation.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
BMC Infect Dis
Journal subject:
DOENCAS TRANSMISSIVEIS
Year:
2022
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: