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The DOI matches its Crossref record; 43 of the 43 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The effect of control strategies to reduce social mixing on outcomes of the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China: a modelling study

Open access
Prem, Kiesha, Liu, Yang, Russell, Timothy W, Kucharski, Adam J, Eggo, Rosalind M, Davies, Nicholas, Flasche, Stefan, Clifford, Samuel, Pearson, Carl A B, Munday, James D, Abbott, Sam, Gibbs, Hamish, Rosello, Alicia, Quilty, Billy J, Jombart, Thibaut, Sun, Fiona, Diamond, Charlie, Gimma, Amy, van Zandvoort, Kevin, Funk, Sebastian, Jarvis, Christopher I, Edmunds, W John, Bosse, Nikos I, Hellewell, Joel, Jit, Mark, Klepac, Petra·2020·The Lancet Public Health

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In December, 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel coronavirus, emerged in Wuhan, China. Since then, the city of Wuhan has taken unprecedented measures in response to the outbreak, including extended school and workplace closures. We aimed to estimate the effects of physical distancing measures on the progression of the COVID-19 epidemic, hoping to provide some insights for the rest of the world. METHODS: To examine how changes in population mixing have affected outbreak progression in Wuhan, we used synthetic location-specific contact patterns in Wuhan and adapted these in the presence of school closures, extended workplace closures, and a reduction in mixing in the general community. Using these matrices and the latest estimates of the epidemiological parameters of the Wuhan outbreak, we simulated the ongoing trajectory of an outbreak in Wuhan using an age-structured susceptible-exposed-infected-removed (SEIR) model for several physical distancing measures. We fitted the latest estimates of epidemic parameters from a transmission model to data on local and internationally exported cases from Wuhan in an age-structured epidemic framework and investigated the age distribution of cases. We also simulated lifting of the control measures by allowing people to return to work in a phased-in way and looked at the effects of returning to work at different stages of the underlying outbreak (at the beginning of March or April). FINDINGS: Our projections show that physical distancing measures were most effective if the staggered return to work was at the beginning of April; this reduced the median number of infections by more than 92% (IQR 66-97) and 24% (13-90) in mid-2020 and end-2020, respectively. There are benefits to sustaining these measures until April in terms of delaying and reducing the height of the peak, median epidemic size at end-2020, and affording health-care systems more time to expand and respond. However, the modelled effects of physical distancing measures vary by the duration of infectiousness and the role school children have in the epidemic. INTERPRETATION: and the duration of infectiousness. FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Institute for Health Research, Wellcome Trust, and Health Data Research UK.

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Tian, 2020, Early evaluation of the Wuhan City travel restrictions in response to the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, medRxiv
  2. Klepac, 2011, The stage-structured epidemic: linking disease and demography with a multi-state matrix approach model, Theor Ecol, 4, 301, 10.1007/s12080-010-0079-8 · doi:10.1007/s12080-010-0079-8
  3. Bi, 2020, Epidemiology and transmission of COVID-19 in Shenzhen China: analysis of 391 cases and 1286 of their close contacts, medRxiv
  4. Woelfel, 2020, Clinical presentation and virological assessment of hospitalized cases of coronavirus disease 2019 in a travel-associated transmission cluster, medRxiv
  5. Cowling, 2020, They've contained the coronavirus. Here's how, New York Times

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Metadata

Authors
Prem, K., Liu, Y., Russell, T. W., Kucharski, A. J., Eggo, R. M., Davies, N., Flasche, S., Clifford, S., Pearson, C. A. B., Munday, J. D., Abbott, S., Gibbs, H., Rosello, A., Quilty, B. J., Jombart, T., Sun, F., Diamond, C., Gimma, A., van Zandvoort, K., Funk, S., Jarvis, C. I., Edmunds, W. J., Bosse, N. I., Hellewell, J., Jit, M., & Klepac, P.
Venue
The Lancet Public Health
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-05
Volume
5
Issue
5
Pages
e261-e270
ISSN
2468-2667 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3012789146
Cited by
2,114
References
43
FWCI
75.89
Type
journal article
Language
en
Update notices
erratum (2020-05-01)
Open access
gold
Licence
Funders
  • Wellcome Trust (206250/Z/17/Z)
  • National Institute for Health and Care Research (16/137/109)
  • Department of Health and Social Care
  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-003174)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The effect of control strategies to reduce social mixing on outcomes of the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China: a modelling study. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/s2468-2667(20)30073-6
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Prem, K., Liu, Y., Russell, T. W., Kucharski, A. J., Eggo, R. M., Davies, N., Flasche, S., Clifford, S., Pearson, C. A. B., Munday, J. D., Abbott, S., Gibbs, H., Rosello, A., Quilty, B. J., Jombart, T., Sun, F., Diamond, C., Gimma, A., van Zandvoort, K., . . . Klepac, P. (2020). The effect of control strategies to reduce social mixing on outcomes of the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China: a modelling study. The Lancet Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2468-2667(20)30073-6

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.