A prospect on the use of antiviral drugs to control local outbreaks of COVID-19

Andrea Torneri; Pieter Jules Karel Libin; Joris Vanderlocht; Anne-Mieke Vandamme; Johan Neyts; Niel Hens

The introduction of an antiviral compound substantially contributes in reducing the final size, the 212 peak incidence and the probability of a challenging outbreak in all the considered settings. This 213 decrease, compared to the scenario in which only isolation/quarantine is implemented, increases 214 when quarantine is less effective (left panels). In Figure 6 and 7, we vary the reproduction number 215 that is set, respectively, to R 0 = 2 and R 0 = 3. The effect of the antiviral drug, in addition to 216 isolation and quarantine, increases when the reproduction number increases. In case of R 0 = 3, case of remarkable impact in both the final size and the peak incidence. 224 We tested also the effect of an asymptomatic proportion of infectives. We assume that the 35% author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. Figure 5 : Mean peak incidence for Scenario IAS (yellow), Scenario IBS (green) and Scenario IBTBS (blue) when the quarantine contact rate is λ q =0·5λ (left panel) and λ q =0·1λ (right panel) together with 2·5% and 97·5% percentiles. Figure 6 : Final size distribution (left panel) and mean peak incidence for Scenario IAS (yellow), Scenario IBS (green) and Scenario IBTBS (blue) when the quarantine contact rate is λ q =0·25λ, and R 0 = 2. In the left panel, for each scenario we report the probability that a simulation leads to a number of cases smaller than the 10% of the population (purple asterisks). In the right panel, together with the point estimates we report the 2·5% and 97·5 % percentiles. Figure 7 : Final size distribution (left panel) and mean peak incidence for Scenario IAS (yellow), Scenario IBS (green) and Scenario IBTBS (blue) when the quarantine contact rate is λ q =0·25λ, and R 0 = 3. In the left panel, for each scenario we report the probability that a simulation leads to a number of cases smaller than the 10% of the population (purple asterisks). In the right panel, together with the point estimates we report the 2·5% and 97·5 % percentiles.