Changes in contact patterns shape the dynamics of the COVID-19 outbreak in China

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 368; no. 6498; pp. 1481 - 1486
• Main Authors: Zhang, Juanjuan, Litvinova, Maria, Liang, Yuxia, Wang, Yan, Wang, Wei, Zhao, Shanlu, Wu, Qianhui, Merler, Stefano, Viboud, Cécile, Vespignani, Alessandro, Ajelli, Marco, Yu, Hongjie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 26.06.2020; American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age; Age Factors; Aged; Behavior; Betacoronavirus; Child; Child, Preschool; China - epidemiology; Closures; Communicable Disease Control; Confidence intervals; Contact Tracing; Coronaviridae; Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology; Coronavirus Infections - prevention & control; Coronavirus Infections - transmission; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Disease control; Disease Outbreaks; Disease Susceptibility; Disease transmission; Epidemics; Epidemiology; Female; Households; Humans; Infant; Infections; Male; Medicine; Middle Aged; Models, Theoretical; Outbreaks; Pandemics; Pandemics - prevention & control; Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology; Pneumonia, Viral - prevention & control; Pneumonia, Viral - transmission; Polls & surveys; Preempting; Respiratory diseases; SARS-CoV-2; School Closing; School closures; Schools; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Social distancing; Social interactions; Viral diseases; Viruses; Workplace; Young Adult; China
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.abb8001

The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought tighter restrictions on the daily lives of millions of people, but we do not yet understand what measures are the most effective. Zhang et al. modeled virus transmission in Wuhan, China, in February 2020, investigating the effects of interventions ranging from patient management to social isolation. Age-mixing patterns were estimated by contact surveys conducted in Wuhan and Shanghai at the beginning of February 2020. Once people reduced their average daily contacts from 14 to 20 down to 2, transmission rapidly fell below the epidemic threshold. The model also showed that preemptive school closures helped to reduce transmission, although alone they would not prevent a COVID-19 outbreak. Limiting human mixing to within households appeared to be the most effective measure. Science , this issue p. 1481 Reducing social contacts on the scale achieved in Wuhan and Shanghai in early 2020 could be sufficient to bring a COVID-19 outbreak under control. Intense nonpharmaceutical interventions were put in place in China to stop transmission of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As transmission intensifies in other countries, the interplay between age, contact patterns, social distancing, susceptibility to infection, and COVID-19 dynamics remains unclear. To answer these questions, we analyze contact survey data for Wuhan and Shanghai before and during the outbreak and contact-tracing information from Hunan province. Daily contacts were reduced seven- to eightfold during the COVID-19 social distancing period, with most interactions restricted to the household. We find that children 0 to 14 years of age are less susceptible to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection than adults 15 to 64 years of age (odds ratio 0.34, 95% confidence interval 0.24 to 0.49), whereas individuals more than 65 years of age are more susceptible to infection (odds ratio 1.47, 95% confidence interval 1.12 to 1.92). Based on these data, we built a transmission model to study the impact of social distancing and school closure on transmission. We find that social distancing alone, as implemented in China during the outbreak, is sufficient to control COVID-19. Although proactive school closures cannot interrupt transmission on their own, they can reduce peak incidence by 40 to 60% and delay the epidemic.