Abstract
Non-pharmaceutical public health interventions have significant economic and social costs, and minimizing their duration is paramount. Assuming that interventions are sufficient to reduce infection prevalence, we use a simple linear Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model with case importation to determine the relationship between the timing of restrictions, duration of measures necessary to return the incidence to a set point, and the final size of the outbreak. The predictions of our linear SIR model agree well with COVID-19 data from Atlantic Canada, and are consistent with the predictions of more complex deterministic COVID-19 models. We conclude that earlier re-escalation of restrictions results in shorter disruptions, smaller outbreaks, and consequently, lower economic and social costs. Our key message is succinctly summarized as ’don’t wait, re-escalate’ since delaying re-escalation of restrictions results in not only more infections, but also longer periods of restrictions.
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Hurford, A., Watmough, J. (2022). Don’t Wait, Re-escalate: Delayed Action Results in Longer Duration of COVID-19 Restrictions. In: Murty, V.K., Wu, J. (eds) Mathematics of Public Health. Fields Institute Communications, vol 85. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85053-1_11
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