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Published on: April 9, 2021
On limits of contact tracing in epidemic control
Tomasz Piasecki1, Piotr B Mucha1, Magdalena Rosińska2
1Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Warszawa, Poland.
Abstract:
Contact tracing and quarantine are well established non-pharmaceutical epidemic control tools. The paper aims to clarify the impact of these measures in evolution of epidemic. The proposed deterministic model defines a simple rule on the reproduction number [Formula: see text] in terms of ratio of diagnosed cases and, quarantine and transmission parameters. The model is applied to the early stage of Covid19 crisis in Poland. We investigate 3 scenarios corresponding to different ratios of diagnosed cases. Our results show that, depending on the scenario, contact tracing prevented from 50% to over 90% of cases. The effects of quarantine are limited by fraction of undiagnosed cases. The key conclusion is that under realistic assumptions the epidemic can not be controlled without any social distancing measures.
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