29.06.2020
Summer vacation and COVID-19: effects of metropolitan people going to summer provinces.
Modeling Infectiology
Briton T et al
Pre-prints
Main result
The authors conclude that the mixing rate of short-term visitors on the island of Gotland is likely to trigger a new epidemic wave. Another conclusion is that decreasing the epidemic in the metropolitan area before going to summer vacations could prevent a new epidemic.
Takeaways
The authors investigate the influence of several factors on the consequences of interactions between metropolitan people (higher immunity and mixing rates) and provincial people (lower immunity and mixing rates) during summer vacations in terms of a potential occurrence of a new epidemic wave. Their investigation focuses on movements from the Stockholm area towards the island of Gotland (popular vacation spot).
Strength of evidence Undetermined
The authors focus only on the island of Gotland, which limits in a way their investigation. Also, all numerical investigations are rather limited, and no real theoretical analysis of their models is performed. Considering short term and long term tourists is however an interesting point of view and the resulting dynamics of the epidemic are worth being studied.
Objectives
Introduce a SIR or SEIR model accounting for short and long term visitors (2 populations with different habits - metropolitan people and local, provincial people in a vacation spot).
Perform a sensitivity analysis to identify which epidemiological factors are most influential in propagating the epidemic.
Perform a sensitivity analysis to identify which epidemiological factors are most influential in propagating the epidemic.
Method
An SIR and a SEIR model are developed, using classical methods, and numerical simulations are used to generate temporal dynamics as well as to perform sensitivity analysis. Sensitivity analysis consists in varying a parameter value in a range [50%, 150%] centered around its initial value. Parameter values are not estimated, they are obtained from known sources.
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