The importance of timely contact tracing — A simulation study

BACKGROUND: While the role of contact tracing in the containment of the COVID-19 epidemic remains important until vaccines are widely available, literature on objectively measurable indicators for the effectiveness of contact tracing is scarce. We suggest the diagnostic serial interval, the time between the diagnosis of the infector and infectee, as a new indicator for the effectiveness of contact tracing. METHODS: Using an agent-based simulation model, we demonstrate how the diagnostic serial interval correlates with the course of the epidemic. We consider four scenarios of how diagnosis and subsequent isolation are triggered: 1. never, 2. by symptoms, 3. by symptoms and loose contact tracing, 4. by symptoms and tight contact tracing. We further refine scenarios 3 and 4 with different lengths of target diagnostic serial intervals. RESULTS: Scenarios 1 and 2 did not yield a notable difference. In scenarios 3 and 4, however, contact tracing led to a decrease of the height of the epidemic as well as the cumulative proportion of infected agents. Generally, the shorter the diagnostic serial interval was, the smaller the peak of the epidemic became, and the more proportion of the population remained susceptible at the end of the epidemic. CONCLUSION: A short target diagnosis interval is critical for contact tracing to be effective in the epidemic control. The diagnosis interval can be used to assess and guide the contact tracing strategy.