To mask or not to mask: Modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic

Steffen E. Eikenberry; Marina Mancuso; Enahoro Iboi; Tin Phan; Keenan Eikenberry; Yang Kuang; Eric Kostelich; Abba B. Gumel

In [38] , Li et al. imposed a metapopulation structure onto an SEIR-model to account for travel between major cities in China. Notably, they include compartments for both documented and undocumented infections. Their model suggests that as many as 86% of all cases went undetected in Wuhan before travel restrictions took effect on January 23, 2020. They additionally estimated that, on a per person basis, asymptomatic individuals were only 55% as contagious, yet were responsible for 79% of new infections, given their increased prevalence. The importance of accounting for asymptomatic individuals has been confirmed by other studies ( [39] , [21] ). In their model-based assessment of case-fatality ratios, Verity et al. [40] estimated that 40-50% of cases went unidentified in China, as of February 8, 2020, while in the case of the Princess Diamond cruise ship, 46 .5% of individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 were asymptomatic [49] . Further, Calafiore et al. [21] , using a modified SIR-model, estimated that, on average, cases in Italy went underreported by a factor of 63, as of March 30, 2020 .