Simulation study of incidence and spread of COVID-19 epidemic under routine prevention and control

  Objective  To explore the routine prevention and control measures for COVID-19 and to evaluate the epidemic spread in different simulated emergency status through an established computational model based on contact network and individual state changes, and provide theory evidence and method for the prevention and control of COVID-19 and epidemic prediction.

  Methods  The impacts of close contact isolation and secondary close contact isolation on the prevention and control of COVID-19 were evaluated based on an individual based model. The dynamics of the epidemic in the context of sporadic cases, cluster, or continuous case importation under routine prevention and control were studied through model simulation, respectively.

  Results  Model simulations showed that the effect of the secondary close contact isolation was obvious, which could greatly reduce the epidemic level compared with close contact isolation alone. According to model simulation, the proposed prevention and control strategy can effectively control the epidemic caused by sporadic cases, clusters, and continuous imported cases.

  Conclusion  Based on the model simulation of epidemic spread under different status, the effect of COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control by routine measures was evaluated, indicating that secondary close contact quarantine is necessary to control the disease spreading, and it is suggested to conduct early isolation of close contacts as early as possible after the epidemic occur in the routine prevention and control of COVID-19.