Summer vacation and COVID-19: effects of metropolitan people going to summer provinces

TL;DR

This study uses a simple epidemic model to analyze how summer travel from metropolitan areas to less populated provinces can influence COVID-19 spread, highlighting key factors affecting infection rates.

Contribution

It identifies the most influential factors in COVID-19 transmission during summer travel and suggests targeted measures to reduce spread in such scenarios.

Findings

High mixing between groups increases infection risk

Initial infectiousness of visitors significantly impacts spread

Reducing gatherings and short-term visitors can lower infections

Abstract

Many countries are now investigating what the effects of summer vacation might be on the COVID-19 pandemic. Here one particular such question is addressed: what will happen if large numbers of metropolitan people visit a less populated province during the summer vacation? By means of a simple epidemic model, allowing for both short and long-term visitors to the province, it is studied which features are most influential in determining if such summer movements will result in large number of infections among the province population. The method is applied to the island of Gotland off the South East coast of Sweden. It is shown that the amount of mixing between the metropolitan and province groups and the fraction of metropolitan people being infectious upon arrival are most influential. Consequently, minimizing events gathering both the province and metropolitan groups and/or reducing the number of short-term visitors could substantially decrease spreading, as could measures to lower the fraction initially infectious upon arrival.