Effects of weather-related social distancing on city-scale transmission of respiratory viruses

Michael L Jackson; Gregory R Hart; Denise J McCulloch; Amanda Adler; Elisabeth Brandstetter; Kairsten Fay; Peter Han; Kirsten Lacombe; Jover Lee; Thomas Sibley; Deborah A Nickerson; Mark Rieder; Lea Starita; Janet A Englund; Trevor Bedford; Helen Chu; Michael Famulare

To characterize the effect of the timing of social distancing on epidemic incidence, we simulated the incidence of influenza A/H3N2 without any weather-related disruption, and with a 14-day disruption starting between day 20 and day 80 of the epidemic (Figure 4 ). In the absence of any disruption, the epidemic is predicted to peak on day 67. Early in the course of the epidemic, a 14-day disruption, by itself, has little effect on the final epidemic size. In contrast, disruptions at or near the peak can meaningfully reduce peak incidence. For example, a disruption starting on day 65 reduced total incidence by 16% in these simulations. 8 . CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.