Halting SARS-CoV-2 by targeting high-contact individuals

Abstract

Network scientists have proposed that infectious diseases involving person-to-person transmission could be effectively halted by interventions targeting a minority of highly connected individuals. Could this strategy be effective in combating a virus partly transmitted in close-range contact, as many believe SARS-CoV-2 to be? Effectiveness critically depends on high between-person variability in the number of close-range contacts. We analyzed population survey data showing that the distribution of close-range contacts across individuals is indeed characterized by a small proportion of individuals reporting very high frequency contacts. Strikingly, we found that the average duration of contact is mostly invariant in the number of contacts, rein-forcing the criticality of hubs. We simulated a population embedded in a network with empirically observed contact frequencies. Simulations showed that targeting hubs robustly improves containment.