Local measures enable COVID-19 containment with fewer restrictions due to cooperative effects

Abstract

Many countries worldwide that were successful in containing the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic are faced with the seemingly impossible choice between the resurgence of infections and endangering the economic and mental well-being of their citizens. While blanket measures are slowly being lifted and infection numbers are monitored, a systematic strategy for balancing contact restrictions and the freedom necessary for a functioning society long-term in the absence of a vaccine is currently lacking. Here, we propose a regional strategy with locally triggered containment measures that can largely circumvent this trade-off and substantially lower the magnitude of restrictions the average individual will have to endure in the near future. For the simulation of future disease dynamics and its control, we use current data on the spread of COVID-19 in Germany, Italy, England, New York State and Florida, taking into account the regional structure of each country and their past lockdown efficiency. Overall, our analysis shows that tight regional control in the short term can lead to long-term net benefits due to small-number effects which are amplified by the regional subdivision and crucially depend on the rate of cross-regional contacts. We outline the mechanisms and parameters responsible for these benefits and suggest possible was to gain access to them, simultaneously achieving more freedom for the population and successfully containing the epidemic. Our open-source simulation code is freely available and can be readily adapted to other countries. We hope that our analysis will help create sustainable, theory-driven long-term strategies for the management of the COVID-19 epidemic until therapy or immunization options are available.

Dealing With the COVID-19 Infodemic: Distress by Information, Information Avoidance, and Compliance With Preventive Measures

“…At the same time, the goal was to prevent the uncontrolled spread of the virus with high casualties. Introducing preventive measures on a regional level appears to be a promising approach to contain the virus (Bittihn et al, 2020). This requires timely and tailored communication from governments as well as high information attainment from the public.…”

Research Article Summary: Inferring change points in the COVID-19 spreading reveals the effectiveness of interventions

“…as done in Fig. S3), spatial heterogeneity [17, 21], isolation effects [20, 37], subsampling effects hiding undetected cases even beyond the reporting delay [38, 39], or the age and contact structure of the population [26]. In countries where drastic changes in test coverage are expected, this will have to be included as well.…”

Stochastic effects on the dynamics of an epidemic due to population subdivision

“…II A , these could be included (without changing ) by allowing a certain fraction of contacts across the entire population and only restricting the remaining fraction to within each sub-population. We set up such a model in a separate study 25 to investigate a potential realistic containment strategy.…”

“…However, it also does not preclude the activation of more drastic measures in regions beginning to show deterministic exponential behavior. 25 …”