Background. After several waves of spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are struggling to regain their economies by slowly lifting mobility restrictions and social distance measures applied during the crisis. Meanwhile, recent studies provide compelling evidence on how contact distancing, the use of face masks, and handwashing habits can reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. In this context, we investigated the effect that these personal protection habits can have in preventing new waves of contagion. Methods. We extended an agent-based COVID-19 epidemic model in a simulated community to incorporate the mechanisms of these aforementioned personal care habits and measure their incidence in person-to-person transmission. A full factorial experiment design was performed to illustrate the extent to which the interplay between these personal habits is effective in mitigating the spread of disease. A global sensitivity analysis was performed on the parameters that control these habits to further validate the results. Results. We found that observing physical distance is the dominant habit in reducing disease transmission, although adopting either or both of the other two habits is necessary to some extent to suppress a new outbreak entirely. When physical distance is not observed, adherence to the use of masks or handwashing has a significant decrease in infections and mortality, but the epidemic still unfolds. We also found that in all scenarios, the combined effect of adhering to the three habits is more powerful than adopting them separately. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that a broad adherence of the population to voluntary self-care habits would help contain unfold of new outbreaks. The purpose of our model is illustrative and contributes to ratify the importance of urging citizens to adopt the amalgam of personal care habits as a primary collective protection measure to prevent communities from returning to confinements, while immunisation is carried out in late stages of the pandemic.
Los sistemas peatonales han cobrado importancia dentro de los sistemas de movilidad debido al aumento de los viajes peatonales. Este aumento se ha debido a la concientización de las personas sobre las ventajas de caminar, al aumento del uso de los sistemas de transporte público y en algunos casos a los escasos recursos económicos. En la última década, los sistemas peatonales han sido incluidos en la planeación de movilidad de algunas ciudades.Sin embargo, su definición formal carece del despliegue de sus componentes, así como del análisis de las interrelaciones entre los mismos. Se presenta una propuesta que puede servir de base para su definición formal, con el fin de ser usada para su análisis y diseño. Se concluye que las definiciones actuales no cubren todos los aspectos clave de los sistemas peatonales, para que puedan ser un buen soporte para la toma de decisiones sobre este tipo de sistemas y se distinguenlos componentes estructurales que se consideran importantes.
After the first wave of spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are struggling to recover their economies by slowly lifting the mobility restrictions and social distance measures enforced during the crisis. Therefore, the post-lockdown containment of the disease will depend strongly not any more on government-imposed interventions but on personal care measures, taken voluntarily by their citizens. In this respect, recent studies have shed some light regarding the effectiveness individual protection habits may have in preventing SARS-Cov-2 transmission, particularly physical contact distancing, facial mask wearing and hand-washing habits. In this paper we describe experiments performed on a simulated COVID-19 epidemic in an artificial population using an agent based model, so as to illustrate to what extent the interplay between such personal care habits contributes to mitigate the spread of the disease, assuming the lack of other population-wide non-pharmaceutical interventions or vaccines. We discuss scenarios where wide adherence to these voluntary care habits alone, can be enough to contain the unfold of the contagion. Our model purpose is illustrative and contributes to ratify the importance of disseminating the message regarding the collective benefits of mass adoption of personal protection and hygiene habits, as an exit strategy for COVID-19 in the new normal state.
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