ArticleBMC infectious diseases2021
A data-driven metapopulation model for the Belgian COVID-19 epidemic: assessing the impact of lockdown and exit strategies.
Article in BMC infectious diseases, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- A scoping review of COVID-19 modelling studies in Belgium 2020-2024: incorporation of behaviour and lessons learned.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Pooled it
- Measures implemented in the school setting to contain the COVID-19 pandemicThe Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Mathematical models to characterize the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Mexico, USA.Mathematical biosciences and engineering : MBE · 2025Article
- Contact Observations from an Intensive Care Unit.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Assessing the role of children in the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium using perturbation analysis.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Repetition in social contacts: implications in modelling the transmission of respiratory infectious diseases in pre-pandemic and pandemic settings.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- The impact of quality-adjusted life years on evaluating COVID-19 mitigation strategies: lessons from age-specific vaccination roll-out and variants of concern in Belgium (2020-2022).BMC public health · 2024Article
- Piloting a new method to estimate action thresholds in medicine through intuitive weighing.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2023Article
- Exploring the impact of population ageing on the spread of emerging respiratory infections and the associated burden of mortality.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- A standardised differential privacy framework for epidemiological modeling with mobile phone data.PLOS digital health · 2023Article
- Estimating SARS-CoV-2 infections and associated changes in COVID-19 severity and fatality.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2023Article
- The impact of national and international travel on spatio-temporal transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Belgium in 2021.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- How contact patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic are related to pre-pandemic contact patterns and mobility trends.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- The lockdown and vaccination distribution in Thailand's COVID-19 epidemic: A model study.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2023Article
- Evidence-driven spatiotemporal COVID-19 hospitalization prediction with Ising dynamics.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Understanding the impact of mobility on COVID-19 spread: A hybrid gravity-metapopulation model of COVID-19.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Dynamics of non-household contacts during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 in the Netherlands.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Assessing the effectiveness of perimeter lockdowns as a response to epidemics at the urban scale.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Impact of cross-border-associated cases on the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Switzerland during summer 2020 and 2021.Epidemics · 2022Article
- The Fitness-Corrected Block Model, or how to create maximum-entropy data-driven spatial social networks.Scientific reports · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundIn response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, several countries adopted measures of social distancing to a different degree. For many countries, after successfully curbing the initial wave, lockdown measures were gradually lifted. In Belgium, such relief started on May 4th with phase 1, followed by several subsequent phases over the next few weeks.
methodsWe analysed the expected impact of relaxing stringent lockdown measures taken according to the phased Belgian exit strategy. We developed a stochastic, data-informed, meta-population model that accounts for mixing and mobility of the age-structured population of Belgium. The model is calibrated to daily hospitalization data and is able to reproduce the outbreak at the national level. We consider different scenarios for relieving the lockdown, quantified in terms of relative reductions in pre-pandemic social mixing and mobility. We validate our assumptions by making comparisons with social contact data collected during and after the lockdown.
resultsOur model is able to successfully describe the initial wave of COVID-19 in Belgium and identifies interactions during leisure/other activities as pivotal in the exit strategy. Indeed, we find a smaller impact of school re-openings as compared to restarting leisure activities and re-openings of work places. We also assess the impact of case isolation of new (suspected) infections, and find that it allows re-establishing relatively more social interactions while still ensuring epidemic control. Scenarios predicting a second wave of hospitalizations were not observed, suggesting that the per-contact probability of infection has changed with respect to the pre-lockdown period.
conclusionsContacts during leisure activities are found to be most influential, followed by professional contacts and school contacts, respectively, for an impending second wave of COVID-19. Regular re-assessment of social contacts in the population is therefore crucial to adjust to evolving behavioral changes that can affect epidemic diffusion.
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