Epidemic modelling of monitoring public behavior using surveys during pandemic-induced lockdowns

TY - JOUR

T1 - Epidemic modelling of monitoring public behavior using surveys during pandemic-induced lockdowns

AU - Koher, Andreas

AU - Jørgensen, Frederik

AU - Petersen, Michael Bang

AU - Lehmann, Sune

PY - 2023/6

Y1 - 2023/6

N2 - BACKGROUND: Implementing a lockdown for disease mitigation is a balancing act: Non-pharmaceutical interventions can reduce disease transmission significantly, but interventions also have considerable societal costs. Therefore, decision-makers need near real-time information to calibrate the level of restrictions.METHODS: We fielded daily surveys in Denmark during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to monitor public response to the announced lockdown. A key question asked respondents to state their number of close contacts within the past 24 hours. Here, we establish a link between survey data, mobility data, and hospitalizations via epidemic modelling of a short time-interval around Denmark's December 2020 lockdown. Using Bayesian analysis, we then evaluate the usefulness of survey responses as a tool to monitor the effects of lockdown and then compare the predictive performance to that of mobility data.RESULTS: We find that, unlike mobility, self-reported contacts decreased significantly in all regions before the nation-wide implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions and improved predicting future hospitalizations compared to mobility data. A detailed analysis of contact types indicates that contact with friends and strangers outperforms contact with colleagues and family members (outside the household) on the same prediction task.CONCLUSIONS: Representative surveys thus qualify as a reliable, non-privacy invasive monitoring tool to track the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions and study potential transmission paths.

AB - BACKGROUND: Implementing a lockdown for disease mitigation is a balancing act: Non-pharmaceutical interventions can reduce disease transmission significantly, but interventions also have considerable societal costs. Therefore, decision-makers need near real-time information to calibrate the level of restrictions.METHODS: We fielded daily surveys in Denmark during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to monitor public response to the announced lockdown. A key question asked respondents to state their number of close contacts within the past 24 hours. Here, we establish a link between survey data, mobility data, and hospitalizations via epidemic modelling of a short time-interval around Denmark's December 2020 lockdown. Using Bayesian analysis, we then evaluate the usefulness of survey responses as a tool to monitor the effects of lockdown and then compare the predictive performance to that of mobility data.RESULTS: We find that, unlike mobility, self-reported contacts decreased significantly in all regions before the nation-wide implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions and improved predicting future hospitalizations compared to mobility data. A detailed analysis of contact types indicates that contact with friends and strangers outperforms contact with colleagues and family members (outside the household) on the same prediction task.CONCLUSIONS: Representative surveys thus qualify as a reliable, non-privacy invasive monitoring tool to track the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions and study potential transmission paths.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85173906724&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s43856-023-00310-z

DO - 10.1038/s43856-023-00310-z

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 37291090

SN - 2730-664X

VL - 3

JO - Communications Medicine

JF - Communications Medicine

IS - 1

M1 - 80

ER -