Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America.
National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, Annapolis, Maryland, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Jan 22;16(1):e0242955. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242955. eCollection 2021.
Human behavior (movement, social contacts) plays a central role in the spread of pathogens like SARS-CoV-2. The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 was driven by global human movement, and initial lockdown measures aimed to localize movement and contact in order to slow spread. Thus, movement and contact patterns need to be explicitly considered when making reopening decisions, especially regarding return to work. Here, as a case study, we consider the initial stages of resuming research at a large research university, using approaches from movement ecology and contact network epidemiology. First, we develop a dynamical pathogen model describing movement between home and work; we show that limiting social contact, via reduced people or reduced time in the workplace are fairly equivalent strategies to slow pathogen spread. Second, we develop a model based on spatial contact patterns within a specific office and lab building on campus; we show that restricting on-campus activities to labs (rather than labs and offices) could dramatically alter (modularize) contact network structure and thus, potentially reduce pathogen spread by providing a workplace mechanism to reduce contact. Here we argue that explicitly accounting for human movement and contact behavior in the workplace can provide additional strategies to slow pathogen spread that can be used in conjunction with ongoing public health efforts.
人类行为（运动、社会接触）在病原体（如 SARS-CoV-2）的传播中起着核心作用。SARS-CoV-2 的迅速传播是由全球人类活动驱动的，最初的封锁措施旨在使活动和接触本地化，以减缓传播。因此，在做出重新开放的决策时，特别是在返回工作岗位时，需要明确考虑活动和接触模式。在这里，我们以一个大型研究型大学恢复研究的初始阶段为例，使用运动生态学和接触网络流行病学的方法进行研究。首先，我们开发了一个描述在家和工作之间移动的动态病原体模型；我们表明，通过减少人员或减少工作场所的时间来限制社交接触，是减缓病原体传播的相当等效策略。其次，我们根据校园内特定办公室和实验室的空间接触模式开发了一个模型；我们表明，将校园内的活动限制在实验室（而不是实验室和办公室）中，可以极大地改变（模块化）接触网络结构，从而通过提供减少接触的工作场所机制，潜在地减少病原体的传播。在这里，我们认为在工作场所中明确考虑人类活动和接触行为，可以提供额外的减缓病原体传播的策略，这些策略可以与正在进行的公共卫生努力相结合使用。
