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Increasing efficacy of contact-tracing applications by user referrals and stricter quarantining.
Goldberg, Leslie Ann; Jorritsma, Joost; Komjáthy, Júlia; Lapinskas, John.
  • Goldberg LA; Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
  • Jorritsma J; Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands.
  • Komjáthy J; Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands.
  • Lapinskas J; Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
PLoS One ; 16(5): e0250435, 2021.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1234582
ABSTRACT
We study the effects of two mechanisms which increase the efficacy of contact-tracing applications (CTAs) such as the mobile phone contact-tracing applications that have been used during the COVID-19 epidemic. The first mechanism is the introduction of user referrals. We compare four scenarios for the uptake of CTAs-(1) the p% of individuals that use the CTA are chosen randomly, (2) a smaller initial set of randomly-chosen users each refer a contact to use the CTA, achieving p% in total, (3) a small initial set of randomly-chosen users each refer around half of their contacts to use the CTA, achieving p% in total, and (4) for comparison, an idealised scenario in which the p% of the population that uses the CTA is the p% with the most contacts. Using agent-based epidemiological models incorporating a geometric space, we find that, even when the uptake percentage p% is small, CTAs are an effective tool for mitigating the spread of the epidemic in all scenarios. Moreover, user referrals significantly improve efficacy. In addition, it turns out that user referrals reduce the quarantine load. The second mechanism for increasing the efficacy of CTAs is tuning the severity of quarantine measures. Our modelling shows that using CTAs with mild quarantine measures is effective in reducing the maximum hospital load and the number of people who become ill, but leads to a relatively high quarantine load, which may cause economic disruption. Fortunately, under stricter quarantine measures, the advantages are maintained but the quarantine load is reduced. Our models incorporate geometric inhomogeneous random graphs to study the effects of the presence of super-spreaders and of the absence of long-distant contacts (e.g., through travel restrictions) on our conclusions.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Contact Tracing / SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study / Prognostic study / Qualitative research / Randomized controlled trials Limits: Humans Language: English Journal: PLoS One Journal subject: Science / Medicine Year: 2021 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: Journal.pone.0250435

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Contact Tracing / SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study / Prognostic study / Qualitative research / Randomized controlled trials Limits: Humans Language: English Journal: PLoS One Journal subject: Science / Medicine Year: 2021 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: Journal.pone.0250435