Abstract
AbstractWe developed a flexible infectious disease model framework that combines a detailed individual-based model of arrival pathways (quarantine model) and an individual-based model of the arrivals environment (community model) to inform border risk assessments. The work was motivated by Australia’s desire to safely increase international arrival volumes, which had been heavily constrained since early 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. These analyses supported decisions on quarantine and border policy in the context of the Australian government’s national reopening plan in late 2021.The quarantine model provides a detailed representation of transmission within quarantine and time-varying infectiousness and test sensitivity within individuals, to characterise the likelihood and infectiousness of breaches from quarantine. The community model subsequently captures the impact these infectious individuals have in the presence of varying vaccination coverage, arrival volumes, public health and social measures (PHSMs) and test-trace-isolate-quarantine system effectiveness in the Australian context.Our results showed that high vaccination coverage would be required to safely reopen with support from ongoing PHSMs, and quarantine pathways have minimal impact on infection dynamics in the presence of existing local transmission. The modelling pipeline we present can be flexibly adapted to a range of scenarios and thus provides a useful framework for generating timely risk assessments in the event of future pandemics.
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Reference40 articles.
1. Public health effects of travel-related policies on the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed-methods systematic review
2. Outbreak dynamics of COVID-19 in Europe and the effect of travel restrictions
3. The effectiveness of full and partial travel bans against COVID-19 spread in Australia for travellers from China during and after the epidemic peak in China
4. Halton J. National Review of Quarantine, for National Cabinet, Government of Australia; 2020. Available from: https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/national-review-of-hotel-quarantine.
5. Halton J , Head G , Collignon P , et al. National Review of Quarantine, for Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet, Government of Australia; 2021. Available from: https://www.pmc.gov.au/publications/national-review-quarantine.