Effect of different resumption strategies to flatten the potential COVID-19 outbreaks amid society reopens: a modeling study

Abstract

The effect of the COVID-19 outbreak has led policymakers around the world to attempt transmission control. However, lockdown and shutdown interventions have caused new social problems and designating policy resumption for infection control when reopening society remains a crucial issue. We investigated the effects of different resumption strategies on COVID-19 transmission using a modeling study setting. We employed a susceptible-exposed-infectious-removed model to simulate COVID-19 outbreaks under five reopening strategies based on the business resumption progress in China. The effect of each strategy was evaluated using the peak values of the epidemic curves with respect to confirmed active cases and cumulative cases. We found that a hierarchy-based reopen strategy performed best when current epidemic prevention measures were maintained save for lockdown, reducing the peak number of active cases and cumulative cases by 50% and 44%, respectively. However, the modeled effect of each strategy decreased when the current intervention was lifted somewhat. Additional attention should be given to regions with significant numbers of migrants, as the potential risk of COVID-19 outbreaks amid society reopening is intrinsically high. Business resumption strategies have the potential to eliminate COVID-19 outbreaks amid society reopening without special control measures. The proposed resumption strategies focused mainly on decreasing the number of imported exposure cases, guaranteeing medical support for epidemic control, or decreasing active cases.