The Impact of Host-Based Early Warning on Disease Outbreaks

Mark Hernandez; Lauren E Milechin; Shakti K Davis; Rich DeLaura; Kajal T Claypool; Albert Swiston

In the scenarios of high initial exposure (Figure 11c and Figure 11d ), the costs of imperfect early detection were more pronounced compared to those for scenarios of low initial exposure. Because a high initial exposure greatly increased the likelihood of infectious individuals transmitting the pathogen to those susceptible, even a short delay in isolating infectious individuals lead to more infections. The reduction of cumulative infections for all notional early warning systems, relative to the self-monitoring policy, was less prominent than in scenarios of low initial exposure as the initial exposed population was close to saturation. In effect, for these extreme cases of mass exposures, the more aggressive policies (i.e., a high-sensitivity early detection system or quarantining everyone) may be more effective.