Estimating the human bottleneck for contact tracing

• Published in: PNAS nexus Vol. 3; no. 7; p. pgae283
• Main Authors: Broda, Maximilian D, Borovska, Petra, Kollenda, Diana, Linka, Marcel, de Haas, Naomi, de Haas, Samuel, de Haas, Benjamin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: US Oxford University Press 01.07.2024
• Subjects: Analysis; Brief Report; Contact tracing; Distribution; Epidemic models; Epidemics; Epidemiology; Episodic memory; Germany; Infectious diseases; Memory aids; Methods; Pandemics; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Viral diseases; Germany; forgetting; memory; under-reporting; contact tracing
• ISSN: 2752-6542; 2752-6542
• DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae283

Abstract The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the importance of contact tracing for epidemiological mitigation. Contact tracing interviews (CTIs) typically rely on episodic memory, which is prone to decline over time. Here, we provide a quantitative estimate of reporting decline for age- and gender-representative samples from the United Kingdom and Germany, emulating >15,000 CTIs. We find that the number of reported contacts declines as a power function of recall delay and is significantly higher for younger subjects and for those who used memory aids, such as a scheduler. We further find that these factors interact with delay: Older subjects and those who made no use of memory aids have steeper decline functions. These findings can inform epidemiological modeling and policies in the context of infectious diseases.