Version 1
: Received: 1 April 2020 / Approved: 6 April 2020 / Online: 6 April 2020 (15:20:55 CEST)
How to cite:
Cannistraci, C.V. Age Adaptive Social Distancing: A Nonlinear Engineering Strategy to Contrast COVID-19 via Precision and Personalized Mitigation. Preprints2020, 2020040066. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202004.0066.v1
Cannistraci, C.V. Age Adaptive Social Distancing: A Nonlinear Engineering Strategy to Contrast COVID-19 via Precision and Personalized Mitigation. Preprints 2020, 2020040066. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202004.0066.v1
Cannistraci, C.V. Age Adaptive Social Distancing: A Nonlinear Engineering Strategy to Contrast COVID-19 via Precision and Personalized Mitigation. Preprints2020, 2020040066. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202004.0066.v1
APA Style
Cannistraci, C.V. (2020). Age Adaptive Social Distancing: A Nonlinear Engineering Strategy to Contrast COVID-19 via Precision and Personalized Mitigation. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202004.0066.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Cannistraci, C.V. 2020 "Age Adaptive Social Distancing: A Nonlinear Engineering Strategy to Contrast COVID-19 via Precision and Personalized Mitigation" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202004.0066.v1
Abstract
COVID-19 severity is heterogeneously distributed over age strata, but current mitigation strategies are homogeneously applied to all population. Social-distancing and stay-home are effective conservative approaches but lack economic sustainability on long term. Conversely, herd-immunity is a nonrestrictive strategy which can cost remarkable number of human lives and can melt the healthcare system down. Here I propose an Age Adaptive Social Distancing (AASD) engineering strategy to mitigate COVID-19 outbreak. AASD is based on the scientific evidence that the fatality rate grows nonlinearly with age, hence also the containing strategy should adapt nonlinearly. Essentially, AASD suggests that ‘silent spreaders’ (age 0-39) should avoid/minimize direct and indirect contacts with individuals in ‘dangerous zone’ (age 40+). The rationale is: 0-19 should follow parents strategy, healthy 20-39 (low fatality rate) might conduct screened life under active surveillance, to sustain economy and acquire rational immunity; 40-59 should respect social distancing (waiting a therapy); 60+ should stay at home (waiting a vaccine). This might save human lives, reduce healthcare demand and improve economic sustainability. The final take-home message is that future studies should design precision and personalized strategies for specific contagious diseases that integrate different social constrains, active surveillance and contact tracing.
Keywords
mitigation strategy; COVID-19; epidemics; health policy; public and global health; demographics; social distancing
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Biology and Biotechnology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.