Age-group-targeted testing for COVID-19 as a new prevention strategy
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Age-group-targeted testing for COVID-19 as a new prevention strategy Ranjit Kumar Upadhyay
· Sourin Chatterjee · Satvik Saha · Rajeev K. Azad
Received: 7 May 2020 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Robust testing and tracing are key to fighting the menace of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19). This outbreak has progressed with tremendous impact on human life, society and economy. In this paper, we propose an age-structured SIQR model to track the progression of the pandemic in India, Italy and USA, taking into account the different age structures of these countries. We have made predictions about the disease dynamics, identified the most infected age groups and analysed the effectiveness of social distancing measures taken in the early stages of infection. The basic reproductive ratio R0 has been numerically calculated for each country. We propose a strategy of age-targeted testing, with increased testing in the most proportionally infected age groups. We observe a marked flattening of the infection curve upon simulating increased testing in the 15–40 year age groups in India. Thus, we conclude that social distancing and R. K. Upadhyay (B) Department of Mathematics and Computing, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad, Jharkhand 826004, India e-mail: [email protected] S. Chatterjee · S. Saha Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, West Bengal 741246, India R. K. Azad Department of Biological Sciences, College of Science, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA R. K. Azad Department of Mathematics, College of Science, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA
widespread testing are effective methods of control, with emphasis on testing and identifying the hot spots of highly infected populations. It has also been suggested that a complete lockdown, followed by lockdowns in selected regions, is more effective than the reverse. Keywords Epidemic model · COVID-19 · Age-structured SIQR model · Basic reproductive ratio · Age-targeted testing
1 Introduction COVID-19, a respiratory disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), has spread to almost every part of the world, since first reported in 31 December 2019 [1]. WHO declared this outbreak a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ on 30 January 2020. As of 30 April 2020, it has caused 2,33,824 deaths with 33,03,544 confirmed cases of infection. Till date, USA has the largest number of fatalities, followed by Italy. USA reports 1,095,023 cases, with 3226 cases per million people, though the statistics have still been evolving due to the large variability in testing performed by different countries as of now [2]. In the absence of any vaccine to prevent and contain the spread of novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, as well as the lack of an established treatment regimen to cure this disease (beyond mitigation of symptoms),
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effective non-pharmaceutical interventions are needed to contain the epidemic and
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