Two-intervention social distancing strategy to control COVID-19 in Mosul city; A Comparative study

Abstract

Background: Novel coronavirus what known now as COVID-19 pandemic represents worldwide health problem. It presented as an upper respiratory infection, acute respiratory distress syndrome, micro thrombosis, sepsis, septic shock, and multi-organ failure and death. Early recognition of suspected cases allows health staff and local gover-   Nment the sufficient time to initiate the appropriate international and national protocols to control the transmission of infection. Aim:  Evaluate the effectiveness of two- intervention social distancing strategy that was applied to control COVID-19 in Mosul city. Method: Using mathematical simulation model for COVID-19 spread implemented in Santa Clara City in US to estimate the expected burden of the pandemic in Mosul City. This model give a numerical data about the number of the infected cases and time interval of applying the appropriate intervention control strategies by comparing single-strategy (social distancing) to two-intervention strategy (social distancing & light switch approach). Results: The two interventions strategy shows that on average, the baseline epidemic scenario affected 12.3% of the population in comparison to 11.6% with single-strategy at 70% contact rate. While at the rate of 20% of social contact, only 0.11 % of the population will be infected in the two-intervention strategy in comparison to 0.165% when the single strategy applied. This means a significant reduction in the spread of the infection and the peak time incidence in all hypotheses will be significantly delayed. Conclusion: The two- intervention social distancing strategy is an efficient tool to control COVID-19 in Mosul city and this represents a big success for Crisis Cell in controlling the pandemic in Mosul city.