Using a real-world network to model the trade-off between stay-at-home restriction, vaccination, social distancing and working hours on COVID-19 dynamics

PeerJ

article

Ramin Nashebi¹  Murat Sari¹  Seyfullah Kotil³ 

[1] Department of Mathematics, Yildiz Technical University;Department of Mathematics Engineering, Faculty of Science and Letters, Istanbul Technical University;Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, Bahcesehir University

关键词: Pandemic;    COVID-19;    Agent-based model;    Household transmission;    Social network;    Working hours;    Stay-at-home policy;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.14353

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundHuman behaviour, economic activity, vaccination, and social distancing are inseparably entangled in epidemic management. This study aims to investigate the effects of various parameters such as stay-at-home restrictions, work hours, vaccination, and social distance on the containment of pandemics such as COVID-19.MethodsTo achieve this, we have developed an agent based model based on a time-dynamic graph with stochastic transmission events. The graph is constructed from a real-world social network. The edges of graph have been categorized into three categories: home, workplaces, and social environment. The conditions needed to mitigate the spread of wild-type COVID-19 and the delta variant have been analyzed. Our purposeful agent based model has carefully executed tens of thousands of individual-based simulations. We propose simple relationships for the trade-offs between effective reproduction number (Re), transmission rate, working hours, vaccination, and stay-at-home restrictions.ResultsWe have found that the effect of a 13.6% increase in vaccination for wild-type (WT) COVID-19 is equivalent to reducing four hours of work or a one-day stay-at-home restriction. For the delta, 20.2% vaccination has the same effect. Also, since we can keep track of household and non-household infections, we observed that the change in household transmission rate does not significantly alter the Re. Household infections are not limited by transmission rate due to the high frequency of connections. For the specifications of COVID-19, the Re depends on the non-household transmissions rate.ConclusionsOur findings highlight that decreasing working hours is the least effective among the non-pharmaceutical interventions. Our results suggest that policymakers decrease work-related activities as a last resort and should probably not do so when the effects are minimal, as shown. Furthermore, the enforcement of stay-at-home restrictions is moderately effective and can be used in conjunction with other measures if absolutely necessary.

【 授权许可】

CC BY