The COVID-19 pandemic caused many governments to impose policies restricting social interactions. A controlled and persistent release of lockdown measures covers many potential strategies and is subject to extensive scenario analyses. Here, we use an individual-based model (STRIDE) to simulate interactions between 11 million inhabitants of Belgium at different levels including extended household settings, i.e., “household bubbles”. The burden of COVID-19 is impacted by both the intensity and frequency of physical contacts, and therefore, household bubbles have the potential to reduce hospital admissions by 90%. In addition, we find that it is crucial to complete contact tracing 4 days after symptom onset. Assumptions on the susceptibility of children affect the impact of school reopening, though we find that business and leisure-related social mixing patterns have more impact on COVID-19 associated disease burden. An optimal deployment of the mitigation policies under study require timely compliance to physical distancing, testing and self-isolation. The COVID-19 pandemic caused many governments to impose policies restricting social interactions. Here, the authors implement an age-specific, individual-based model with data on social contacts for the Belgian population and investigate the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions.
【저자키워드】 viral infection, Health policy, Statistics, 【초록키워드】 COVID-19, lockdown, children, susceptibility, COVID-19 pandemic, Contact tracing, Compliance, physical distancing, Hospital admission, Belgium, disease, interactions, Interaction, Frequency, Self-isolation, Government, symptom onset, intensity, subject, measure, social contact, Affect, Complete, physical, caused, addition, reduce, analyses, impacted, 【제목키워드】 COVID-19, Contact tracing,