ArticlePloS one2020
Mobility restrictions for the control of epidemics: When do they work?
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 85 citations in OpenAlex.
- Epidemics, Lockdown Measures and Vulnerable Populations: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review of the Evidence of Impacts on Mother and Child Health in Low-and Lower-Middle-Income Countries.International journal of health policy and management · 2022Pooled it
- Public health effects of travel-related policies on the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed-methods systematic review.The Journal of infection · 2021Pooled it
- International travel-related control measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid review.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Article
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- Model predicted human mobility explains COVID-19 transmission in urban space without behavioral data.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Adaptive human behaviour modulates the impact of immune life history and vaccination on long-term epidemic dynamics.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- A novel approach to model the role of mobility suppression and vaccinations in containing epidemics in a network of cities.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2024Article
- Systematic literature review on impacts of COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding measures on mobility.Transportation · 2023Article
- Airborne disease transmission during indoor gatherings over multiple time scales: Modeling framework and policy implications.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- The illusion of personal health decisions for infectious disease management: disease spread in social contact networks.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Dispersal Kernel Type Highly Influences Projected Relationships for Plant Disease Epidemic Severity When Outbreak and At-Risk Populations Differ in Susceptibility.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- A patchy theoretical model for the transmission dynamics of SARS-Cov-2 with optimal control.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Genomic epidemiological models describe pathogen evolution across fitness valleys.Science advances · 2022Article
- Mobility patterns and COVID growth: Moderating role of country culture.International journal of intercultural relations : IJIR · 2022Article
- Analyzing COVID-19's impact on the travel mobility of various social groups in China's Greater Bay Area via mobile phone big data.Transportation research. Part A, Policy and practice · 2022Article
- Lockdowns, Community Mobility Patterns, and COVID-19: A Retrospective Analysis of Data from 16 Countries.Healthcare informatics research · 2022Article
- Back to basics: measuring the impact of interventions to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Europe.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2022Article
- A linear dynamical perspective on epidemiology: interplay between early COVID-19 outbreak and human mobility.Nonlinear dynamics · 2022Article
- The propagation effect of commuting to work in the spatial transmission of COVID-19.Journal of geographical systems · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMobility restrictions-trade and travel bans, border closures and, in extreme cases, area quarantines or cordons sanitaires-are among the most widely used measures to control infectious diseases. Restrictions of this kind were important in the response to epidemics of SARS (2003), H1N1 influenza (2009), Ebola (2014) and, currently in the containment of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, they do not always work as expected.
methodsTo determine when mobility restrictions reduce the size of an epidemic, we use a model of disease transmission within and between economically heterogeneous locally connected communities. One community comprises a low-risk, low-density population with access to effective medical resources. The other comprises a high-risk, high-density population without access to effective medical resources.
findingsUnrestricted mobility between the two risk communities increases the number of secondary cases in the low-risk community but reduces the overall epidemic size. By contrast, the imposition of a cordon sanitaire around the high-risk community reduces the number of secondary infections in the low-risk community but increases the overall epidemic size.
interpretationMobility restrictions may not be an effective policy for controlling the spread of an infectious disease if it is assessed by the overall final epidemic size. Patterns of mobility established through the independent mobility and trade decisions of people in both communities may be sufficient to contain epidemics.
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