Mobility During the Pandemic and Its Markers of Disease Spread

Speaker:  Zabra Mohammadi (Postdoctoral Fellow - UoG)

Abstract:

Z. Mohammadi, M. G. Cojocaru, and E. W. Thommes
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Guelph
Sano Pasteur

Abstract
The outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) originated in Wuhan, China, has affected the lives of millions of people globally. Throughout the last year, the re-production number of COVID-19 is widely used by decision-makers to explain their strategies to control the COVID-19 pandemic. In this work, we compare the effective reproduction numbers from real incidence data with theoretical estimates for 12 regions/countries from February 2020 to January 2021. We consider mobility reductions, behavioral activity as contact rate, and other nonpharmaceutical interventions(NPIs) in each region to get more accurate e ective reproduction numbers in this time interval.  In each region, the use of and adherence to NPIs measures, principally social distancing and mask-wearing, had largely reached an equilibrium over summer and early fall of 2020. However, as throughout much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, the rate of transmission increased dramatically starting in July. Cellphone mobility data combined with contact rates allow us to investigate the e ects of mobility reduction and other NPIs measures on decreasing the e ective reproduction numbers to respond to the pandemic in the absence of vaccinations. We quantify this additional effect, which may be attributable to seasonality as seen in other respiratory diseases e.g. infuenza, RSV, etc.