Report 25: Response to COVID-19 in South Korea and implications for lifting stringent interventions

Dighe, Amy; Cattarino, Lorenzo; Cuomo-Dannenburg, Gina; Skarp, Janetta; Imai, Natsuko; Bhatia, Samarth; Gaythorpe, Katy A. M.; Ainslie, Kylie E. C.; Baguelin, Marc; Bhatt, Sunita; Boonyasiri, Adhiratha; Boyd, Olivia; Brazeau, Nicholas F.; Charles, Grace K.; Cooper, L; Coupland, Helen; Perez, Z Cucunuba; Djaafara, A; Dorigatti, Ilaria; Eales, Owen O.; Eaton, Jeff; Elsland, S Van; Nascimento, Fabrícia F.; Fitzjohn, R; Flaxman, Seth; Fraser, K. B.; Geidelberg, Lily; Green, W; Hallett, Timothy B.; Hamlet, Arran; Hauck, Katharina; Haw, David; Hinsley, Wes; Jeffrey, B; Knock, Edward; Laydon, Daniel J.; Lees, Jonathan G.; Mellan, Thomas A.; Mishra, Sandip K.; Gilani, G Nedjati; Nouvellet, Pierre; Okell, Lucy; Parag, Kris V; Salort, M Pons; Ragonnet‐Cronin, Manon; Thompson, Hilary; Unwin, H. Juliette T.; Verity, Robert; Whittaker, C; Whittles, Lilith K; Xi, Xin; Ghani, A; Donnelly, C; Ferguson, Nikita; Riley, S

doi:10.25561/79388

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“…On the other hand, the index case of the Shincheonji church in Daegu was in a presymptomatic stage (without severe symptoms but infectious) and went to the massive gathering at the Shincheonji church several times (a large number of close contacts) [48] , [49] . In this case, efficient contact tracing was almost impossible.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lastly, the impacts of case-isolation with contact-tracing intervention scenarios are investigated. In the absence of treatments or vaccines of COVID-19, the Korean government has implemented non-pharmacy interventions such as case-isolation combined with acquaintance quarantine (from contact tracing intervention) [17] , [48] . We implement case-isolation and contact tracing interventions as follows; the infected and confirmed individuals (who are in \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{upgreek} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} }{}$I$ \end{document} class) are identified first, then all individuals who had effective contacts (neighbors) with these infected individuals are traced.…”

Section: Agent-based Modeling For Covid-19 Transmission Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing the Effectiveness of Isolation and Contact-Tracing Interventions for Early Transmission Dynamics of COVID-19 in South Korea

2021

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Recent COVID-19 outbreaks pose serious public health challenges all around the world. South Korea had experienced the early outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and implemented early effective interventions. The 2020 COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea showed spatial hot spots and super-spreading events. As a result of these super-spreading events, three huge outbreaks of the COVID-19 have occurred in Korea from February to December 2020. To capture the intrinsic nature of heterogeneity, an agent-based model has been developed focusing on early transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in South Korea. Based on the social empirical contact information of early confirmed cases of COVID-19, we have constructed a scale-free network. Our agent-based model has incorporated essential individual variability such as different contact numbers and infectivity levels. In the absence of vaccines or treatment, contact tracing, case-isolation, quarantine are the most critical interventions to prevent larger outbreaks. First, we investigate the impacts of critical factors on various epidemic outputs such as incidence and cumulative incidence. These critical factors include contact numbers, transmission rates, infectivity of presymptomatic or asymptomatic cases, and contact-tracing with quarantine intervention. Furthermore, the effectiveness of case isolation and contact-tracing (followed by quarantine) is evaluated under various scenarios. Our results indicate that case isolation combined with contact-tracing quarantine is much more effective under a moderate level of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{upgreek} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} }{}$\mathcal R_{0}$ \end{document} (smaller transmission rates or contact numbers) and presymptomatic cases. However, the efficacy of interventions reduces significantly for a higher level of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{upgreek} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} }{}$\mathcal R_{0}$ \end{document} (larger transmission rates or contact numbers) with a high level of infectivity (in presymptomatic cases). This highlights the key role of efficient contact-tracing and case-isolation to mitigate larger outbreaks or super-spreading events.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%