Post pandemic fatigue: what are effective strategies?

Abstract

Abstract Recurrent updates in non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) aim to control successive waves of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) but are often met with low adherence by the public. This study evaluated the effectiveness of gathering restrictions and quarantine policies based on a modified Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Hospitalized-Recovered (SEIHR) model by incorporating cross-boundary travellers with or without quarantine to study the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 with data spanning a nine-month period during 2020 in Hong Kong. The asymptotic stability of equilibria reveals that the model exhibits the phenomenon of backward bifurcation, which in this study is a co-existence between a stable disease-free equilibrium (DFE) and an endemic equilibrium (EE). Even if the basic reproduction number ( $${\mathscr {R}}_{0}$$ R 0 ) is less than unity, this disease cannot be eliminated. The effect of each parameter on the overall dynamics was assessed using Partial Rank Correlation Coefficients (PRCCs). Transmission rates (i.e., $$\beta _1$$ β 1 and $$\beta _2$$ β 2 ), effective contact ratio $$a_6$$ a 6 between symptomatic individuals and quarantined people, and transfer rate $$\theta _3$$ θ 3 related to infection during quarantine were identified to be the most sensitive parameters. The effective contact ratios between the infectors and susceptible individuals in late July were found to be over twice as high as that in March of 2020, reflecting pandemic fatigue and the potential existence of infection during quarantine.