Data from the COVID-19 epidemic in Florida suggest that younger cohorts have been transmitting their infections to less
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Data from the COVID-19 epidemic in Florida suggest that younger cohorts have been transmitting their infections to less socially mobile older adults Jeffrey E. Harris
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Received: 3 August 2020 / Accepted: 11 August 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020, corrected publication 2020
Abstract We analyzed the daily incidence of newly reported COVID-19 cases among adults aged 20–39 years, 40–59 years, and 60 or more years in the sixteen most populous counties of the state of Florida from March 1 through June 27, 2020. In all 16 counties, an increase in reported COVID-19 case incidence was observed in all three age groups soon after the governor-ordered Full Phase 1 reopening went into effect. Trends in social mobility, but not trends in testing, track case incidence. Data on hospitalization do not support the hypothesis that the observed increase in case incidence was merely the result of liberalization of testing criteria. Parameter estimates from a parsimonious two-group heterogeneous SIR model strongly support the hypothesis that younger persons, having first acquired their infections through increasing social contact with their peers, then transmitted their infections to older, less socially mobile individuals. Without such cross-infection, an isolated epidemic among older people in Florida would be unsustainable. Keywords SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Heterogenous SIR models Reopening Social mobility Testing ●
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1 Introduction Recent reports suggest that the age distribution of new cases of COVID-19 in the United States has shifted toward younger adults (Malmgren et al. 2020). One possible explanation is that younger adults have tended to adhere less strictly to recommended social distancing measures, especially as many states, counties and
* Jeffrey E. Harris [email protected] 1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
J. E. Harris
municipalities have begun to reopen. A particular concern is that the higher prevalence of active infection among younger individuals will ultimately result in a higher rate of cross-infection in older persons. In this article, we use publicly available data on confirmed individual COVID-19 cases compiled by the state of Florida to test whether the incidence of new coronavirus infections has in fact been rising more rapidly among younger cohorts. We then explore whether the available data can be used to assess whether cross-infection of older cohorts is already occurring. To that end, we analyze the daily incidence of newly reported COVID-19 cases among adults aged 20–39 years, 40–59 years, and 60 or more years in the sixteen most populous counties of the state of Florida from March 1 through June 27, 2020. In all 16 counties, we observe an increase in reported COVID-19 case incidence in all three age groups soon after the governor-ordered Full Phase 1 reopening went into effect. Trends in social mobility, but not trends in testing, track case incidence. We then use our data on COVID-19 case incidence to
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