The Role of Mobility and Sanitary Measures on the Delay of Community Transmission of COVID-19 in Costa Rica

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to infer the effects that change on human mobility had on the transmission dynamics during the first four months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Costa Rica, which could have played a role in delaying community transmission in the country. First, by using parametric and non-parametric change-point detection techniques, we were able to identify two different periods when the trend of daily new cases significantly changed. Second, we explored the association of these changes with data on population mobility. This also allowed us to estimate the lag between changes in human mobility and rates of daily new cases. The information was then used to establish an association between changes in population mobility and the sanitary measures adopted during the study period. Results showed that during the initial two months of the pandemic in Costa Rica, the implementation of sanitary measures and their impact on reducing human mobility translated to a mean reduction of 54% in the number of daily cases from the projected number, delaying community transmission.

A multilayer network model of Covid-19: Implications in public health policy in Costa Rica

“…We did not know for sure if and how effective these sanitary measures were at reducing human mobility. We performed a parallel analysis ( Barboza et al, 2021 ) describing the impact that reduction in mobility had on infections and hospitalization. However, we also anticipated that the same intervention imposed at different pandemic stages was unlikely to produce the same results.…”

“… Protective measures. Previous studies ( Chu et al, 2020 , Cook, 2020 , Barboza et al, 2021 ) have shown that incorporating appropriate personal protective measures and restricting human mobility reduce the probability of infection. If a particular interaction between two nodes involves using personal protective measures, then we reduce the probability accordingly; see Table 1 .…”

Poder y literatura en Centroamérica: Sergio Ramírez y Carlos Alvarado

“…Como era previsible, tal mejora fue efímera: a partir de junio de 2020, los contagios empezaron a aumentar, una vez que el Poder Ejecutivo flexibilizó las restricciones en respuesta a las presiones de los empresarios. Además, las medidas adoptadas para enfrentar la crisis favorecían de manera desproporcionada a los patronos, facultados para reducir salarios y jornadas de modo unilateral (Barboza, 2021;Muñoz y Chacón, 2020, pp. 12-14).…”

Advance Monitoring of COVID-19 Incidence Based on Taxi Mobility: The Infection Ratio Measure

“…Nevertheless, interest in many works has focused on the impact of COVID-19 on mobility, and few efforts have been directed at assessing how regulating mobility rates can have positive effects on controlling virus transmission. Examples of these studies have focused on Taiwan [ 6 ], Poland [ 7 ], the United States [ 8 ], India [ 9 ], Spain [ 10 , 11 ], Japan [ 12 ], the United Arab Emirates [ 13 ], Saudi Arabia [ 14 ], Greece [ 15 ], China [ 16 , 17 ], Indonesia [ 18 ], Austria [ 19 ], Italy [ 20 ], Portugal [ 21 , 22 ], South Africa [ 23 ], Costa Rica [ 24 ], and Australia [ 25 ], among others.…”