Author, as appears in the article.: Arenas A; Cota W; Gómez-Gardeñes J; Gómez S; Granell C; Matamalas JT; Soriano-Paños D; Steinegger B

Department: Enginyeria Informàtica i Matemàtiques

e-ISSN: 1536-6065

URV's Author/s: Arenas Moreno, Alejandro / Gómez Jiménez, Sergio / Matamalas Llodrà, Joan Tomàs / Steinegger, Benjamin Franz Josef

Abstract: © 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. On 31 December, 2019, an outbreak of a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that causes the COVID-19 disease, was first reported in Hubei, mainland China. This epidemics' health threat is probably one of the biggest challenges faced by our interconnected modern societies. According to the epidemiological reports, the large basic reproduction number R0~3.0, together with a huge fraction of asymptomatic infections, paved the way for a major crisis of the national health capacity systems. Here, we develop an age-stratified mobility-based metapopulation model that encapsulates the main particularities of the spreading of COVID-19 regarding (i) its transmission among individuals, (ii) the specificities of certain demographic groups with respect to the impact of COVID-19, and (iii) the human mobility patterns inside and among regions. The full dynamics of the epidemic is formalized in terms of a microscopic Markov chain approach that incorporates the former elements and the possibility of implementing containment measures based on social distancing and confinement. With this model, we study the evolution of the effective reproduction number R(t), the key epidemiological parameter to track the evolution of the transmissibility and the effects of containment measures, as it quantifies the number of secondary infections generated by an infected individual. The suppression of the epidemic is directly related to this value and is attained when R<1. We find an analytical expression connecting R with nonpharmacological interventions, and its phase diagram is presented. We apply this model at the municipality level in Spain, successfully forecasting the observed incidence and the number of fatalities in the country at each of its regions. The expression for R should assist policymakers to evaluate the epidemics' response to actions, such as enforcing or relaxing confinement and social distancing.

Thematic Areas: Physics, multidisciplinary Physics and astronomy (miscellaneous) Physics and astronomy (all) Matemática / probabilidade e estatística General physics and astronomy Engenharias iv Astronomia / física

licence for use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Author's mail: joantomas.matamalas@urv.cat alexandre.arenas@urv.cat sergio.gomez@urv.cat benjamin.steinegger@estudiants.urv.cat

Author identifier: 0000-0002-7563-9269 0000-0003-0937-0334 0000-0003-1820-0062 0000-0002-0723-1536

Record's date: 2023-02-19

Papper version: info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Link to the original source: https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.10.041055

Licence document URL: http://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/

Papper original source: Physical Review x. 10 (4):

APA: Arenas A; Cota W; Gómez-Gardeñes J; Gómez S; Granell C; Matamalas JT; Soriano-Paños D; Steinegger B (2020). Modeling the Spatiotemporal Epidemic Spreading of COVID-19 and the Impact of Mobility and Social Distancing Interventions. Physical Review x, 10(4), -. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.10.041055

Article's DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.10.041055

Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Journal publication year: 2020

Publication Type: Journal Publications