SARS-CoV-2 spread and quarantine fatigue: a theoretical model

TL;DR

This paper presents a mathematical SIR model incorporating quarantine fatigue to explain the observed second COVID-19 infection peaks, emphasizing the importance of considering behavioral fatigue in pandemic management.

Contribution

A new deterministic differential equation model integrating quarantine fatigue into COVID-19 spread dynamics is developed and analyzed through simulations.

Findings

Quarantine fatigue can lead to a second infection peak.

Model sensitivity to infection rate influences outbreak dynamics.

Fatigue effects are significant in pandemic progression understanding.

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, community containment measures have been implemented in different parts of the world. However, despite government recommendations and mandates, a progressive increase in mobility was observed in several sites. This phenomenon is often referred to as "quarantine fatigue". Mathematical models have been used for more than a century to study the dynamics of diseases spread. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of models have been developed to investigate different aspects of the pandemic. The aim of the present work has been to design and explore a mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 spread with quarantine fatigue. A deterministic model represented by a system of differential equations, based on Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) dynamics, was developed. The model was explored by means of computational simulations. The results obtained show that, in some scenarios, after a first prevalence peak, fatigue can cause a second peak. Thus, the dynamic behavior of the model suggests that fatigue may have contributed to the production of the second peak of infected people observed in different parts of the world between 2020 and early 2021. The explorations performed also showed that the model is sensitive to infection rate and other parameters related to propagation dynamics. The developed model is relatively simple and has important limitations for performing accurate predictions in the real world. However, our study highlights the importance of considering quarantine fatigue in the management of the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as of possible future pandemics caused by other pathogens.