The impact of social distancing on COVID19 spread: State of Georgia case study

PLoS One. 2020 Oct 12;15(10):e0239798. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239798. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

As the spread of COVID19 in the US continues to grow, local and state officials face difficult decisions about when and how to transition to a "new normal." The goal of this study is to project the number of COVID19 infections and resulting severe outcomes, and the need for hospital capacity under social distancing, particularly, shelter-in-place and voluntary quarantine for the State of Georgia. We developed an agent-based simulation model to project the infection spread. The model utilizes COVID19-specific parameters and data from Georgia on population interactions and demographics. The simulation study covered a seven and a half-month period, testing different social distancing scenarios, including baselines (no-intervention or school closure only) and combinations of shelter-in-place and voluntary quarantine with different timelines and compliance levels. The following outcomes are compared at the state and community levels: the number and percentage of cumulative and daily new symptomatic and asymptomatic infections, hospitalizations, and deaths; COVID19-related demand for hospital beds, ICU beds, and ventilators. The results suggest that shelter-in-place followed by voluntary quarantine reduced peak infections from approximately 180K under no intervention and 113K under school closure, respectively, to below 53K, and delayed the peak from April to July or later. Increasing shelter-in-place duration from four to five weeks yielded 2-9% and 3-11% decrease in cumulative infection and deaths, respectively. Regardless of the shelter-in-place duration, increasing voluntary quarantine compliance decreased daily new infections from almost 53K to 25K, and decreased cumulative infections by about 50%. The cumulative number of deaths ranged from 6,660 to 19,430 under different scenarios. Peak infection date varied across scenarios and counties; on average, increasing shelter-in-place duration delayed the peak day by 6 days. Overall, shelter-in-place followed by voluntary quarantine substantially reduced COVID19 infections, healthcare resource needs, and severe outcomes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • COVID-19
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology*
  • Coronavirus Infections / prevention & control*
  • Female
  • Georgia
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Infant, Newborn
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Pandemics / prevention & control*
  • Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology*
  • Pneumonia, Viral / prevention & control*
  • Quarantine*
  • Social Isolation*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This research was supported in part by the William W. George endowment awarded to PK, the Virginia C. and Joseph C. Mello endowments awarded to NS, and the following benefactors at Georgia Tech: Andrea Laliberte, Joseph C. Mello, Richard “Rick” E. & Charlene Zalesky, and Claudia & Paul Raines. This research was also supported in part by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship awarded to AB (DGE-1650044), a NSF grant to support the high performance computing facilities at Georgia Tech, which we used for the computational runs (MRI 1828187), and research cyberinfrastructure resources and services provided by the Partnership for an Advanced Computing Environment (PACE) at Georgia Tech. The funders played no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or in writing the manuscript.