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This is an abstract from a recent conference. At the bottom is a link to something that may be of use; it's a big file so I don't know what's in it.
Recently, we explored the particulars of protection embedded in these guidances in a series of models as they might be applied to a residential facility such as a nursing home. These models of effect showed that currently recommended procedures and behaviors are likely to provide substantive protection only in pandemics of modest transmissibility (R0~2); and that more stringent measures will be required to avoid outbreaks in more severe pandemics. In particular, the models demonstrated that personnel re-entry from the outside world posed the greatest danger of failure of pandemic protection. With this lead, we found that one path to reducing the likelihood of virus introduction sufficiently to avert the effect of even a severe pandemic involved combining knowledge of the incubation period of the virus with a practice of isolation at home prior to the re-entry. Implementing these insights will require significant social disruption; and the degree of disruption associated with successful protection increases as the severity of the pandemic increases.
Current guidance for pandemic protection of the individual home is limited to cautions for hand washing, modest social distancing practices and avoiding public places if not feeling well. Even a mapping of the guidance categories developed for institutional protection to the individual residence has not been developed and distributed. We have translated the results of the residential facility models into a set of behaviors that should increase dramatically the likelihood that an individual household could survive a pandemic season without viral introduction. These behaviors involve mitigation through isolation, decontamination and enhanced social distancing. Taken together, as in the case of the residential facility, these behaviors become increasingly socially disruptive with increasing pandemic severity. Nevertheless, it appears that as a defensive strategy, such behaviors do provide a practicable pathway for the individual living group to survive an otherwise lethal pandemic.
Recently, we explored the particulars of protection embedded in these guidances in a series of models as they might be applied to a residential facility such as a nursing home. These models of effect showed that currently recommended procedures and behaviors are likely to provide substantive protection only in pandemics of modest transmissibility (R0~2); and that more stringent measures will be required to avoid outbreaks in more severe pandemics. In particular, the models demonstrated that personnel re-entry from the outside world posed the greatest danger of failure of pandemic protection. With this lead, we found that one path to reducing the likelihood of virus introduction sufficiently to avert the effect of even a severe pandemic involved combining knowledge of the incubation period of the virus with a practice of isolation at home prior to the re-entry. Implementing these insights will require significant social disruption; and the degree of disruption associated with successful protection increases as the severity of the pandemic increases.
Current guidance for pandemic protection of the individual home is limited to cautions for hand washing, modest social distancing practices and avoiding public places if not feeling well. Even a mapping of the guidance categories developed for institutional protection to the individual residence has not been developed and distributed. We have translated the results of the residential facility models into a set of behaviors that should increase dramatically the likelihood that an individual household could survive a pandemic season without viral introduction. These behaviors involve mitigation through isolation, decontamination and enhanced social distancing. Taken together, as in the case of the residential facility, these behaviors become increasingly socially disruptive with increasing pandemic severity. Nevertheless, it appears that as a defensive strategy, such behaviors do provide a practicable pathway for the individual living group to survive an otherwise lethal pandemic.
