The end of the social confinement in Spain and the COVID-19 re-emergence risk

Leonardo Lopez; Xavier Rodo

Finally, by way of illustration, Figure 5 shows different dynamics in active and total cases for a generic model scenario in which the ratio α/τ varies decreasing from 1 to 0.5. As it can be seen in the upper part of the figure, when the ratio is 1 the effect of prolonging confinement is seen both as an increase in the size of the peak of active cases as well as for the total cases. This behavior is repeated in the other dynamics up to a maximum when the de-confinement rate (τ) doubles with respect to the protection rate (α). This effect is mainly noticeable in the total number of cases as well as in the appearance and dimension of the second wave of cases. This multipanel figure strongly suggests that releasing a large percentage of the population after the lockdown, results in larger and earlier peaks in the current and next epidemic waves.