Mathematical modeling of COVID-19 containment strategies with considerations for limited medical resources

Brydon Eastman; Cameron Meaney; Michelle Przedborski; Mohammad Kohandel

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . by using Eq. C.1 along with the heuristic assumption that β DD = β M M /100 and β DM = β M M /20. The assumption on β DD is equivalent to assuming that distancing individuals are only 1% as likely to transmit the virus to one another as mixing individuals are. Likewise the assumption on β DM is that the distancing and mixing individuals are only 5% as likely to transmit the virus to one another as mixing individuals are. These effects are simplifying assumptions and other ratios could have been chosen. An important piece to note is that β DD = 0. We do not consider social distancing to be the same as complete isolation. This is meant to capture the fact that social distancers will still interact with the general public either by visiting the grocery store or the doctor or in some other reasonable exposure. With these ratios between the compartmental transmission rates, we can determine the final value of β M M (and thus β DD and β DM as well) for a given θ by solving Eq. C.1.