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Investigating the Impact of Asymptomatic Carriers on COVID-19 Transmission
Preprint
in English
| medRxiv
| ID: ppmedrxiv-20037994
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a novel human respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Asymptomatic carriers of the COVID-19 virus display no clinical symptoms but are known to be contagious. Recent evidence reveals that this subpopulation, as well as persons with mild disease, are a major contributor in the propagation of the disease. The rapid spread of COVID-19 forced governments around the world to establish and enforce generalized risk mitigation strategies, from lockdowns to guidelines for social distancing, in an effort to minimize community transmission. This created an unprecedented epidemiological situation not properly characterized by existing mathematical models of isolation and quarantine. In this manuscript, we present a mathematical model for community transmission of COVID-19 taking into account asymptomatic carriers and varying degrees of risk mitigation. The main results consist of an exact calculation of the effective reproduction number [Formula], and a modeling framework that enables the quantification of the effect of risk mitigation and asymptomatism on community transmission. A computation of [Formula] is provided using mean parameters. The point estimate of the basic reproduction number is [Formula].
cc_by_nc_nd
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Preprints
Database:
medRxiv
Type of study:
Experimental_studies
/
Prognostic study
Language:
English
Year:
2020
Document type:
Preprint