Ontarians Need to Rapidly Increase their Personal Protection and Testing to Mitigate the COVID-19 Spread in the Province

20 Pages Posted: 10 Apr 2020

See all articles by Jianhong Wu

Jianhong Wu

York University - Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics; Africa-Canada Artificial Intelligence and Data Innovation Consortium

Biao Tang

York University - Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Nicola Luigi Bragazzi

University of Parma

Kyeongah Nah

York University - Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Zachary McCarthy

York University - Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Date Written: April 6, 2020

Abstract

Public health interventions have been implemented to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario, Canada; however, the need for adoption of further public health interventions remains. We aim to equip local public health decision- and policy-makers with mathematical model-based estimates of the trend of COVID-19 in Ontario to inform the necessary additional measures required for its control. Our estimates confirm that social distancing measures have helped mitigate transmission by reducing daily infection contact rate, but the disease transmission probability per contact remains as high as 0.145 that the effective reproduction number is still higher than the threshold for disease control. We predict the number of confirmed cases according to varying control efficacies including a combination of reducing further contact rates and transmission probability per contact. We show that the adoption of personal protective equipment and rapid testing may be key to achieve control of COVID-19 in Ontario.

Note: Funding: This project has been funded by the CIHR 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid research program.

Conflict of Interest: No competing interests.

Keywords: COVID-19; pandemics; personal protection; testing; Ontario; Canada; mathematical model

Suggested Citation

Wu, Jianhong and Tang, Biao and Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi and Nah, Kyeongah and McCarthy, Zachary, Ontarians Need to Rapidly Increase their Personal Protection and Testing to Mitigate the COVID-19 Spread in the Province (April 6, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3569731 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3569731

Jianhong Wu

York University - Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics ( email )

Canada

Africa-Canada Artificial Intelligence and Data Innovation Consortium ( email )

Biao Tang

York University - Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics ( email )

Canada

Kyeongah Nah

York University - Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada

Zachary McCarthy

York University - Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada

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