ABSTRACT
We study the transition of an epidemic from growth phase to decay of the active infections in a population when lockdown health measures are introduced to reduce the probability of disease transmission. Although in the case of uniform lockdown, a simple compartmental model would indicate instantaneous transition to decay of the epidemic, this is not the case when partially isolated active clusters remain with the potential to create a series of small outbreaks. We model this using the Gillespie stochastic simulation algorithm based on a connected set of stochastic susceptible-infected-removed/recovered networks representing the locked-down majority population (in which the reproduction number is less than 1) weakly coupled to a large set of small clusters in which the infection may propagate. We find that the presence of such active clusters can lead to slower than expected decay of the epidemic and significantly delayed onset of the decay phase. We study the relative contributions of these changes, caused by the active clusters within the population, to the additional total infected population. We also demonstrate that limiting the size of the inevitable active clusters can be efficient in reducing their impact on the overall size of the epidemic outbreak. The deceleration of the decay phase becomes apparent when the active clusters form at least 5% of the population.