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arXiv · 2011.02349

Effectiveness of isolation measures with app support to contain COVID-19 epidemics: a parametric approach

Andrea Maiorana·Marco Meneghelli·Mario Resnati
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Abstract

In this study, we analyze the effectiveness of measures aimed at finding and isolating infected individuals to contain epidemics like COVID-19, as the suppression induced over the effective reproduction number. We develop a mathematical model to compute the relative suppression of the effective reproduction number of an epidemic that such measures produce. This outcome is expressed as a function of a small set of parameters that describe the main features of the epidemic and summarize the effectiveness of the isolation measures. In particular, we focus on the impact when a fraction of the population uses a mobile application for epidemic control. Finally, we apply the model to COVID-19, providing several computations as examples, and a link to a public repository to run custom calculations. These computations display in a quantitative manner the importance of recognizing infected individuals from symptoms and contact-tracing information, and isolating them as early as possible. The computations also assess the impact of each variable on the suppression of the epidemic.

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Andrea Maiorana, Marco Meneghelli, Mario Resnati. 2021-10-21. Effectiveness of isolation measures with app support to contain COVID-19 epidemics: a parametric approach. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00285-021-01660-9

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