The effect of control strategies that reduce social mixing on outcomes of the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China

Kiesha Prem; Yang Liu; Tim Russell; Adam J Kucharski; Rosalind M Eggo; Nicholas Davies; Mark Jit; Petra Klepac

These measures were most effective if staggered return to work was at the beginning of April; this reduced the overall number of infections in mid-2020 size by more than 92% (interquartile range: 66-97%) (Fig 5 and Fig S4) should the disease have a longer duration of infectiousness, and greatly reduced the magnitude of the peak incidence across all age categories (Fig 4C-E) which can have further beneficial impact by relieving the pressure on the healthcare system. However, premature return to work can result in an increase in incidence even if it originally seemed that the epidemic has started to turn over (second wave, Fig 4B peak of the orange line followed by the sharp increase in incidence in red line). Uncertainty in + values has a large impact on the timing of the peak and the final size of the outbreak (Fig 4A) .