Baseline: No contact tracing (0% of the population is participating)
Level (1): Low contact tracing (1-33% of the population is participating)
Level (2): Moderate contact tracing (34-66% of the population is participating)
Level (3): High contact tracing (67-99% of the population is participating)
Level (4): Total contact tracing (100% of the population is participating)
We hypothesized that high amounts of contact tracing would be optimal to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases to lessen the stress on the U.S. healthcare system.
In our simulation, we show that as the proportion of the population participating in contact tracing increases, the susceptible (blue) nodes become infected (red) nodes less frequently. Thus, the spread of the disease decreases as the proportion of the population contact tracing increases.
The benefits of high-to-total contact tracing are numerous. When high levels of contact tracing are conducted among the U.S. population, the number of deaths decreased by 13.37%.
Our simulation represents moderate to large populations. So, in moderate to large populations:
Increase in contact tracing → Decrease in the spread of disease
Will the results be the same for small populations? This would be an interesting segue into further research on this topic. In rural communties, there is generally more distance between residents, unlike citylife, where a high number residents populate a small square footage area. Therefore, a high proportion of contact tracing among the population may have a lesser impact in smaller populations, especially in populations that are more spread-out, away from the high concentration of city life.
The purpose of this question is to analyze the percentage of the population that does not participate in contact tracing. We want to determine if small to moderate proportions of the population have a large effect on the spread of the disease, assuming that this small to moderate proportion does not participate in contact tracing.
In other words, is there an allowable percentage of the population that does not participate in contact tracing that will not severely impact the U.S. healthcare system?
We'd like to continue our research on this topic to answer this question. This serves as further motivation for the continuation of our project. Check back for updates to this site!