What is it about?

Based on a mathematical model of social network, we simulated the dynamics of infection spreading. As a result, we obtained an important law for everyone who do not like to be a trigger of pandemics. That is, if you come close to a larger number of strangers than of those in your community (partners of daily contacts), you may trigger the pandemics in your country.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This paper proposes a lifestyle "Stay with your community" as a guideline for everyone living. It means we do not have to "stay home" but keep in touch with ones we meet often in daily life, in order to protect the extreme expansion of infections in the society. However, we should reduce the risk to come in touch closely and long enough for infection with people whom we do not meet usually. After publication, this guideline has been shown to be practical i.e., can be executed by creating one's own way to follow or the way to live in a local region by reflecting the regional features and cultures.

Perspectives

"Stay with Your Community" (SWYC) is just one guideline, and other findings are posted on the Cabinet Secretariat's Web Page of our national project on COVID-19 AI Simulations. You can find various laws for living in towns and cities as the embodiments of SWYC using data on human movements, weather, vaccine distribution, etc.. Also, communications in workshop-style living labs involving habitants of local areas enabled practical and safe way of living. I noticed on the way that people sharing common questions with researchers like us can import this kind of scientific finding to their living. Readers, not only scientists but also every living one can Join our Network of Questions (https://www.covid19-ai.jp/en-us/researcher/yukio-ohsawa/).

Yukio Ohsawa
The University of Tokyo

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Stay with your community: Bridges between clusters trigger expansion of COVID-19, PLoS ONE, December 2020, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242766.
You can read the full text:

Read
Open access logo

Resources

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page