Contacts in context: large-scale setting-specific social mixing matrices from the BBC Pandemic project

Petra Klepac; Adam J Kucharski; Andrew JK Conlan; Stephen Kissler; Maria Tang; Hannah Fry; Julia R Gog

Incorporating social mixing patterns in different contexts and at different times of the week (weekend vs weekday) into mathematical models, it is possible to evaluate the potential effectiveness of a range of control measures targeting respiratory infections, including school closures [4, 14] and social distancing [11] . However, the precise combination of setting and type of contact that will be important for transmission will depend on the infection being considered. There is evidence that both physical contacts [18, 6] and conversational contacts [8] may be relevant for capturing the transmission dynamics of acute respiratory infections such as Streptococcus pneumoniae and influenza A/H1N1p, and for influenza, there can be substantial transmission in households [10] and schools [21, 5] . How to weight the respective contributions of conversational and physical contacts to overall population transmission will depend on the pathogen.