Thursday, July 7, 2022
SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag - Latest science news from science magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home SCIENCE NEWS Mathematics

Combining mask wearing, social distancing suppresses COVID-19 virus spread

April 13, 2021
in Mathematics
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Network model findings could shape public health policy for airborne viruses

IMAGE

Credit: Anna Sawulska and Maurizio Porfiri

WASHINGTON, April 13, 2021 — Studies show wearing masks and social distancing can contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but their combined effectiveness is not precisely known.

In Chaos, by AIP Publishing, researchers at New York University and Politecnico di Torino in Italy developed a network model to study the effects of these two measures on the spread of airborne diseases like COVID-19. The model shows viral outbreaks can be prevented if at least 60% of a population complies with both measures.

“Neither social distancing nor mask wearing alone are likely sufficient to halt the spread of COVID-19, unless almost the entire population adheres to the single measure,” author Maurizio Porfiri said. “But if a significant fraction of the population adheres to both measures, viral spreading can be prevented without mass vaccination.”

A network model encompasses nodes, or data points, and edges, or links between nodes. Such models are used in applications ranging from marketing to tracking bird migration. In the researchers’ model, based on a susceptible, exposed, infected, or removed (recovered or has died) framework, each node represents a person’s health status. The edges represent potential contacts between pairs of individuals.

The model accounts for activity variability, meaning a few highly active nodes are responsible for much of the network’s contacts. This mirrors the validated assumption that most people have few interactions and only a few interact with many others. Scenarios involving social distancing without mask wearing and vice versa were also tested by setting up the measures as separate variables.

The model drew on cellphone mobility data and Facebook surveys obtained from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The data showed people who wear masks are also those who tend to reduce their mobility. Based on this premise, nodes were split into individuals who regularly wear masks and socially distance and those whose behavior remains largely unchanged by an epidemic or pandemic.

Using data collected by The New York Times to gauge the model’s effectiveness, the researchers analyzed the cumulative cases per capita in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between July 14, 2020, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially recommended mask wearing, through Dec. 10.

In addition to showing the effects of combining mask wearing and social distancing, the model shows the critical need for widespread adherence to public health measures.

“U.S. states suffering the most from the largest number of infections last fall were also those where people complied less with public health guidelines, thereby falling well above the epidemic threshold predicted by our model,” Porfiri said.

###

The article “How adherence to public health measures shapes epidemic spreading: A temporal network model” is authored by Brandon M. Behring, Alessandro Rizzo, and Maurizio Porfiri. The article will appear in Chaos on April 13, 2021 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0041993). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0041993.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Chaos is devoted to increasing the understanding of nonlinear phenomena in all areas of science and engineering and describing their manifestations in a manner comprehensible to researchers from a broad spectrum of disciplines. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/cha.

Media Contact
Larry Frum
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0041993

Tags: BiologyEpidemiologyInfectious/Emerging DiseasesMathematics/StatisticsMedicine/HealthPublic HealthSocial/Behavioral ScienceVirology
Share25Tweet16Share4ShareSendShare
  • PAN protein domain

    Scientists discover cancer trigger that could spur targeted drug therapies

    79 shares
    Share 32 Tweet 20
  • COVID-19 fattens up our body’s cells to fuel its viral takeover

    103 shares
    Share 41 Tweet 26
  • Messenger RNA technology shows promise for developing infectious disease therapeutics

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • Killing resistant prostate cancer with iron

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • ‘Supergene’ wreaks havoc in a genome

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • How bilingual brains work: Cross-language interplay and an integrated lexicon

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
ADVERTISEMENT

About us

We bring you the latest science news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Latest NEWS

COVID-19 fattens up our body’s cells to fuel its viral takeover

Scientists discover cancer trigger that could spur targeted drug therapies

Immune molecules from a llama could provide protection against a vast array of SARS-like viruses including COVID-19, researchers say

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 190 other subscribers

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Posting....