The impact of contact tracing and household bubbles on deconfinement strategies for COVID-19

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 1524 - 9
• Main Authors: Willem, Lander, Abrams, Steven, Libin, Pieter J. K., Coletti, Pietro, Kuylen, Elise, Petrof, Oana, Møgelmose, Signe, Wambua, James, Herzog, Sereina A., Faes, Christel, Beutels, Philippe, Hens, Niel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 09.03.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/705/531; 692/699/255/2514; 692/700/1538; Adolescent; Adult; Age; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Belgium - epidemiology; Child; Child, Preschool; Communicable Disease Control - methods; Contact Tracing; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; COVID-19 - transmission; Disease Transmission, Infectious - prevention & control; Family Characteristics; Health Policy; Hospitalization; Households; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Middle Aged; Models, Theoretical; multidisciplinary; Pandemics; Policies; Quarantine; SARS-CoV-2 - isolation & purification; Schools; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Social behavior; Social factors; Social interactions; Young Adult; Belgium
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21747-7

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many governments to impose policies restricting social interactions. A controlled and persistent release of lockdown measures covers many potential strategies and is subject to extensive scenario analyses. Here, we use an individual-based model (STRIDE) to simulate interactions between 11 million inhabitants of Belgium at different levels including extended household settings, i.e., “household bubbles”. The burden of COVID-19 is impacted by both the intensity and frequency of physical contacts, and therefore, household bubbles have the potential to reduce hospital admissions by 90%. In addition, we find that it is crucial to complete contact tracing 4 days after symptom onset. Assumptions on the susceptibility of children affect the impact of school reopening, though we find that business and leisure-related social mixing patterns have more impact on COVID-19 associated disease burden. An optimal deployment of the mitigation policies under study require timely compliance to physical distancing, testing and self-isolation. The COVID-19 pandemic caused many governments to impose policies restricting social interactions. Here, the authors implement an age-specific, individual-based model with data on social contacts for the Belgian population and investigate the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions.