A multi-scale model quantifies the impact of limited movement of the population and mandatory wearing of face masks in containing the COVID-19 epidemic in Morocco

Author/s
Bouchnita A.,
Jebrane A.
Year
Language
English
Document Type
Article
Source Title
Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena
Publisher
EDP Sciences

Description

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and caused a serious threat to global public health. In Morocco, the first confirmed COVID-19 case was reported on March 2, 2020. Since then, several non-pharmaceutical interventions were used to slow down the spread of the disease. In this work, we use a previously developed multi-scale model of COVID-19 transmission dynamics to quantify the effects of restricting population movement and wearing face masks on disease spread in Morocco. In this model, individuals are represented as agents that move, become infected, transmit the disease, develop symptoms, go into quarantine, die by the disease, or become immunized. We describe the movement of agents using a social force model and we consider both modes of direct and indirect transmission. We use the model to simulate the impact of restricting the movement of the population movement and mandating the wearing of masks on the spread of COVID-19. The model predicts that adopting these two measures would reduce the total number of cases by 64%. Furthermore, the relative incidence of indirect transmission increases when control measures are adopted. © The authors. Published by EDP Sciences, 2020.

Migration angle
Region/Country (by coverage)
Index Keywords

Health risks; Transmissions; Control measures; Coronaviruses; Disease spread; Global public health; Multi-scale Modeling; Non-pharmaceutical interventions; Social force models; Transmission dynamics; Wear of materials