Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach

Mathematical modeling of epidemic spreading has been widely adopted to estimate the threats of epidemic diseases (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic) as well as to evaluate epidemic control interventions. The indoor place is considered to be a significant epidemic spreading risk origin, but existing widely...

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Autores principales: Xiao, Yao, Yang, Mofeng, Zhu, Zheng, Yang, Hai, Zhang, Lei, Ghader, Sepehr
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8124090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34025048
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.05.004
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author Xiao, Yao
Yang, Mofeng
Zhu, Zheng
Yang, Hai
Zhang, Lei
Ghader, Sepehr
author_facet Xiao, Yao
Yang, Mofeng
Zhu, Zheng
Yang, Hai
Zhang, Lei
Ghader, Sepehr
author_sort Xiao, Yao
collection PubMed
description Mathematical modeling of epidemic spreading has been widely adopted to estimate the threats of epidemic diseases (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic) as well as to evaluate epidemic control interventions. The indoor place is considered to be a significant epidemic spreading risk origin, but existing widely-used epidemic spreading models are usually limited for indoor places since the dynamic physical distance changes between people are ignored, and the empirical features of the essential and non-essential travel are not differentiated. In this paper, we introduce a pedestrian-based epidemic spreading model that is capable of modeling indoor transmission risks of diseases during people's social activities. Taking advantage of the before-and-after mobility data from the University of Maryland COVID-19 Impact Analysis Platform, it's found that people tend to spend more time in grocery stores once their travel frequencies are restricted to a low level. In other words, an increase in dwell time could balance the decrease in travel frequencies and satisfy people's demands. Based on the pedestrian-based model and the empirical evidence, combined non-pharmaceutical interventions from different operational levels are evaluated. Numerical simulations show that restrictions on people's travel frequency and open hours of indoor places may not be universally effective in reducing average infection risks for each pedestrian who visit the place. Entry limitations can be a widely effective alternative, whereas the decision-maker needs to balance the decrease in risky contacts and the increase in queue length outside the place that may impede people from fulfilling their travel needs. The results show that a good coordination among the decision-makers can contribute to the improvement of the performance of combined non-pharmaceutical interventions, and it also benefits the short-term and long-term interventions in the future.
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spelling pubmed-81240902021-05-17 Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach Xiao, Yao Yang, Mofeng Zhu, Zheng Yang, Hai Zhang, Lei Ghader, Sepehr Transp Policy (Oxf) Article Mathematical modeling of epidemic spreading has been widely adopted to estimate the threats of epidemic diseases (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic) as well as to evaluate epidemic control interventions. The indoor place is considered to be a significant epidemic spreading risk origin, but existing widely-used epidemic spreading models are usually limited for indoor places since the dynamic physical distance changes between people are ignored, and the empirical features of the essential and non-essential travel are not differentiated. In this paper, we introduce a pedestrian-based epidemic spreading model that is capable of modeling indoor transmission risks of diseases during people's social activities. Taking advantage of the before-and-after mobility data from the University of Maryland COVID-19 Impact Analysis Platform, it's found that people tend to spend more time in grocery stores once their travel frequencies are restricted to a low level. In other words, an increase in dwell time could balance the decrease in travel frequencies and satisfy people's demands. Based on the pedestrian-based model and the empirical evidence, combined non-pharmaceutical interventions from different operational levels are evaluated. Numerical simulations show that restrictions on people's travel frequency and open hours of indoor places may not be universally effective in reducing average infection risks for each pedestrian who visit the place. Entry limitations can be a widely effective alternative, whereas the decision-maker needs to balance the decrease in risky contacts and the increase in queue length outside the place that may impede people from fulfilling their travel needs. The results show that a good coordination among the decision-makers can contribute to the improvement of the performance of combined non-pharmaceutical interventions, and it also benefits the short-term and long-term interventions in the future. Elsevier Ltd. 2021-08 2021-05-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8124090/ /pubmed/34025048 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.05.004 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Xiao, Yao
Yang, Mofeng
Zhu, Zheng
Yang, Hai
Zhang, Lei
Ghader, Sepehr
Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach
title Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach
title_full Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach
title_fullStr Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach
title_full_unstemmed Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach
title_short Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach
title_sort modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the covid-19 pandemic: a pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8124090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34025048
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.05.004
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