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Reduction in mobility and COVID-19 transmission.

ABSTRACT: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have sought to control SARS-CoV-2 transmission by restricting population movement through social distancing interventions, thus reducing the number of contacts. Mobility data represent an important proxy measure of social distancing, and here, we characterise the relationship between transmission and mobility for 52 countries around the world. Transmission significantly decreased with the initial reduction in mobility in 73% of the countries analysed, but we found evidence of decoupling of transmission and mobility following the relaxation of strict control measures for 80% of countries. For the majority of countries, mobility explained a substantial proportion of the variation in transmissibility (median adjusted R-squared: 48%, interquartile range - IQR - across countries [27-77%]). Where a change in the relationship occurred, predictive ability decreased after the relaxation; from a median adjusted R-squared of 74% (IQR across countries [49-91%]) pre-relaxation, to a median adjusted R-squared of 30% (IQR across countries [12-48%]) post-relaxation. In countries with a clear relationship between mobility and transmission both before and after strict control measures were relaxed, mobility was associated with lower transmission rates after control measures were relaxed indicating that the beneficial effects of ongoing social distancing behaviours were substantial.

SUBMITTER: Nouvellet P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7889876 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Reduction in mobility and COVID-19 transmission.

Nouvellet Pierre P Bhatia Sangeeta S Cori Anne A Ainslie Kylie E C KEC Baguelin Marc M Bhatt Samir S Boonyasiri Adhiratha A Brazeau Nicholas F NF Cattarino Lorenzo L Cooper Laura V LV Coupland Helen H Cucunuba Zulma M ZM Cuomo-Dannenburg Gina G Dighe Amy A Djaafara Bimandra A BA Dorigatti Ilaria I Eales Oliver D OD van Elsland Sabine L SL Nascimento Fabricia F FF FitzJohn Richard G RG Gaythorpe Katy A M KAM Geidelberg Lily L Green William D WD Hamlet Arran A Hauck Katharina K Hinsley Wes W Imai Natsuko N Jeffrey Benjamin B Knock Edward E Laydon Daniel J DJ Lees John A JA Mangal Tara T Mellan Thomas A TA Nedjati-Gilani Gemma G Parag Kris V KV Pons-Salort Margarita M Ragonnet-Cronin Manon M Riley Steven S Unwin H Juliette T HJT Verity Robert R Vollmer Michaela A C MAC Volz Erik E Walker Patrick G T PGT Walters Caroline E CE Wang Haowei H Watson Oliver J OJ Whittaker Charles C Whittles Lilith K LK Xi Xiaoyue X Ferguson Neil M NM Donnelly Christl A CA

Nature communications 20210217 1

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have sought to control SARS-CoV-2 transmission by restricting population movement through social distancing interventions, thus reducing the number of contacts. Mobility data represent an important proxy measure of social distancing, and here, we characterise the relationship between transmission and mobility for 52 countries around the world. Transmission significantly decreased with the initial reduction in mobility in 73% of the countries analys ...[more]

PMID: 33597546

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Project description:BackgroundWithin 4 months of COVID-19 first being reported in the USA, it spread to every state and to more than 90% of all counties. During this period, the US COVID-19 response was highly decentralised, with stay-at-home directives issued by state and local officials, subject to varying levels of enforcement. The absence of a centralised policy and timeline combined with the complex dynamics of human mobility and the variable intensity of local outbreaks makes assessing the effect of large-scale social distancing on COVID-19 transmission in the USA a challenge.MethodsWe used daily mobility data derived from aggregated and anonymised cell (mobile) phone data, provided by Teralytics (Zürich, Switzerland) from Jan 1 to April 20, 2020, to capture real-time trends in movement patterns for each US county, and used these data to generate a social distancing metric. We used epidemiological data to compute the COVID-19 growth rate ratio for a given county on a given day. Using these metrics, we evaluated how social distancing, measured by the relative change in mobility, affected the rate of new infections in the 25 counties in the USA with the highest number of confirmed cases on April 16, 2020, by fitting a statistical model for each county.FindingsOur analysis revealed that mobility patterns are strongly correlated with decreased COVID-19 case growth rates for the most affected counties in the USA, with Pearson correlation coefficients above 0·7 for 20 of the 25 counties evaluated. Additionally, the effect of changes in mobility patterns, which dropped by 35-63% relative to the normal conditions, on COVID-19 transmission are not likely to be perceptible for 9-12 days, and potentially up to 3 weeks, which is consistent with the incubation time of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 plus additional time for reporting. We also show evidence that behavioural changes were already underway in many US counties days to weeks before state-level or local-level stay-at-home policies were implemented, implying that individuals anticipated public health directives where social distancing was adopted, despite a mixed political message.InterpretationThis study strongly supports a role of social distancing as an effective way to mitigate COVID-19 transmission in the USA. Until a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available, social distancing will remain one of the primary measures to combat disease spread, and these findings should serve to support more timely policy making around social distancing in the USA in the future.FundingNone.

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Reduction in mobility and COVID-19 transmission.

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Reduction in mobility and COVID-19 transmission.

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