Modeling COVID-19 Nonpharmaceutical Interventions: Exploring periodic NPI strategies

Vardavas, Raffaele; Lima, Pedro Nascimento de; Baker, Lawrence

doi:10.1101/2021.02.28.21252642

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…In this mathematical exercise, society’s response to the pandemic was smooth and decisive, meaning that policymakers did not start with blunt lockdowns only to reverse course a few weeks later and to instate restrictions again. Therefore, our model does not reproduce results in policies seen in the real world, including adaptive policies that imposed and lifted social distancing orders adaptively, which were tested in our previous work [17] or strategies that use fast periodic switching between suppression and mitigation [18, 19]. One can interpret this result in two ways.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…To better understand lives vs. livelihoods tradeoffs and how it shapes policy and the course of a pandemic, it is useful to combine behavioral models of society with disease transmission models describing the dynamics of how the virus spreads [15, 16]. In this paper, we investigate how the choice of the strategy to govern Nonpharmaceutical interventions change depending on society’s assessment of the time-horizon of the pandemic (i.e., the time it takes to obtain and distribute an effective vaccine) and the costs of suppression measures relative to the social cost of infections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Should we Mitigate or Suppress the next Pandemic? Time-Horizons and Costs shape optimal Social Distancing Strategies

Nowak

2021

Preprint

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The COVID-19 pandemic has called for swift action from local governments, which have instated Nonpharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) to curb the spread of SARS-Cov-2. The quick and decisive decision to save lives through blunt instruments has raised questions about the conditions under which decision-makers should employ mitigation or suppression strategies to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. More broadly, there are still debates over which set of strategies should be adopted to control different pandemics, and the lessons learned for SARS-Cov-2 may not apply to a new pathogen. While curbing SARS-Cov-2 required blunt instruments, it is unclear whether a less-transmissible and less-deadly emerging pathogen would justify the same response. This paper illuminates this question using a parsimonious transmission model by formulating the social distancing lives vs. livelihoods dilemma as a boundary value problem. In this setup, society balances the costs and benefits of social distancing contingent on the costs of reducing transmission relative to the burden imposed by the disease. To the best of our knowledge, our approach is distinct in the sense that strategies emerge from the problem structure rather than being imposed a priori. We find that the relative time-horizon of the pandemic (i.e., the time it takes to develop effective vaccines and treatments) and the relative cost of social distancing influence the choice of the optimal policy. Unsurprisingly, we find that the appropriate policy response depends on these two factors. We discuss the conditions under which each policy archetype (suppression vs. mitigation) appears to be the most appropriate.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Should we Mitigate or Suppress the next Pandemic? Time-Horizons and Costs shape optimal Social Distancing Strategies

Nowak

2021

Preprint

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“…The mask adoption parameter, which has a major influence on effective reproduction numbers (R E ) in SimAEN, is an effective preventive intervention. 27,28 By modeling both appropriate and erroneous quarantines, SimAEN represents the balance between detection benefits and costs, a trade-off not adequately explored and described in the literature. In addition to factors specific to EN, SimAEN considered the degree to which the community has adopted other nonpharmaceutical interventions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating COVID-19 Exposure Notification Effectiveness With SimAEN: A Simulation Tool Designed for Public Health Decision Making

et al. 2022

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Objectives: Exposure notification (EN) supplements traditional contact tracing by using proximity sensors in smartphones to record close contact between persons. This ledger is used to alert persons of potential SARS-CoV-2 exposure, so they can quarantine until their infection status is determined. We describe a model that estimates the impact of EN implementation on reducing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and on the workload of public health officials, in combination with other key public health interventions such as traditional contact tracing, face mask wearing, and testing. Methods: We created an agent-based model, Simulated Automated Exposure Notification (SimAEN), to explore the effectiveness of EN to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2. We varied selected simulation variables, such as population adoption of EN and EN detector sensitivity configurations, to illustrate the potential effects of EN. We executed 20 simulations with SimAEN for each scenario and derived results for each simulation. Results: When more sensitive versus more specific EN configurations were compared, the effective reproductive number, RE, was minimally affected (a decrease <0.03). For scenarios with increasing levels of EN adoption, an increasing number of additional infected persons were identified through EN, and total infection counts in the simulated population decreased; RE values for this scenario decreased with increasing EN adoption (a decrease of 0.1 to 0.2 depending on the scenario). Conclusions: Estimates from SimAEN can help public health officials determine which levels of EN adoption in combination with other public health interventions can maximize prevention of COVID-19 while minimizing unnecessary quarantine in their jurisdiction.

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“…To mitigate the spreading of the virus and to prevent critical health-care systems from being overwhelmed, health authorities have implemented a variety of radical (hard) normative public health interventions, including closing schools and nonessential businesses, prohibiting large gatherings, quarantining the most vulnerable members of society and placing residents under stay-at-home orders. These interventions have had positive effects on people’s health (Vardavas et al , 2021), but the economic and psychological effects have been doubtful. During a pandemic, health authorities have faced hard decisions regarding how and when to relax these normative mitigation measures and whether to reinstate those measures to combat a reappearance of various mutations of the virus (Vardavas et al , 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These interventions have had positive effects on people’s health (Vardavas et al , 2021), but the economic and psychological effects have been doubtful. During a pandemic, health authorities have faced hard decisions regarding how and when to relax these normative mitigation measures and whether to reinstate those measures to combat a reappearance of various mutations of the virus (Vardavas et al , 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of user centric measures in the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)

Haverila

McLaughlin

2022

JSOCM

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Purpose Health authorities have introduced non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) with the aim of reducing the spread of viruses. Against the backdrop of social marketing, normative and utility theories, the purpose of the paper is to examine the relationships between user centric measures such as perceived effectiveness, user satisfaction, and value for effort on intentions to continue to use NPIs. Furthermore, the moderating role of value for effort on user satisfaction and, subsequently, intentions to continue to use NPIs was also considered. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional online survey was completed in British Columbia, Canada (N = 287). Analysis was done with partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings The results show that the relationships between user centric measures are positive and significant on intentions to continue to use NPIs. Furthermore, value for effort moderated the relationship between user satisfaction and intentions to continue to use NPIs – but the relationship was negative. Thus, the higher values of the value for effort construct cause the relationship between user satisfaction and reuse intention to somewhat diminish. Originality/value The results confirm the positive and significant relationships between user centric measures in the context of the use of NPIs and introduce a new understanding of the effect of value for effort on the relationship between user satisfaction and intentions to use NPIs. This enables health officials to better understand how to encourage the use of NPIs.

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Modeling COVID-19 Nonpharmaceutical Interventions: Exploring periodic NPI strategies

Cited by 18 publications

References 56 publications

Should we Mitigate or Suppress the next Pandemic? Time-Horizons and Costs shape optimal Social Distancing Strategies

Should we Mitigate or Suppress the next Pandemic? Time-Horizons and Costs shape optimal Social Distancing Strategies

Evaluating COVID-19 Exposure Notification Effectiveness With SimAEN: A Simulation Tool Designed for Public Health Decision Making

The role of user centric measures in the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)

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