ArticleEpidemics2021
Precautionary breaks: Planned, limited duration circuit breaks to control the prevalence of SARS-CoV2 and the burden of COVID-19 disease.
Article in Epidemics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions as implemented in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid review.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Differential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on sociodemographic groups: A mathematical model framework.PloS one · 2026Article
- Foresight approaches for future health shocks: integration into policy making and accompanying research priorities.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2024Article
- SIR+ models: accounting for interaction-dependent disease susceptibility in the planning of public health interventions.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19 transmission in the UK: a rapid mapping review and interactive evidence gap map.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2024Review
- Article
- Ecological super-spreaders drive host-range oscillations: Omicron and risk space for emerging infectious disease.Transboundary and emerging diseases · 2022Review
- Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold.Journal of theoretical biology · 2022Article
- Low case numbers enable long-term stable pandemic control without lockdowns.Science advances · 2021Article
- Association of tiered restrictions and a second lockdown with COVID-19 deaths and hospital admissions in England: a modelling study.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2021Article
- The challenges of containing SARS-CoV-2 via test-trace-and-isolate.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Adherence and sustainability of interventions informing optimal control against the COVID-19 pandemic.Communications medicine · 2021Article
- Preserving equipoise and performing randomised trials for COVID-19 social distancing interventions.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
COVID-19 in the UK has been characterised by periods of exponential growth and decline, as different non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are brought into play. During the early uncontrolled phase of the outbreak (March 2020) there was a period of prolonged exponential growth with epidemiological observations such as hospitalisation doubling every 3-4 days. The enforcement of strict lockdown measures led to a noticeable decline in all epidemic quantities that slowed during the summer as control measures were relaxed. From August 2020, infections, hospitalisations and deaths began rising once more and various NPIs were applied locally throughout the UK in response. Controlling any rise in infection is a compromise between public health and societal costs, with more stringent NPIs reducing cases but damaging the economy and restricting freedoms. Typically, NPI imposition is made in response to the epidemiological state, are of indefinite length and are often imposed at short notice, greatly increasing the negative impact. An alternative approach is to consider planned, limited duration periods of strict NPIs aiming to purposefully reduce prevalence before such emergency NPIs are required. These "precautionary breaks" may offer a means of keeping control of the epidemic, while their fixed duration and the forewarning may limit their societal impact. Here, using simple analysis and age-structured models matched to the UK SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, we investigate the action of precautionary breaks. In particular we consider their impact on the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, as well as the total number of predicted hospitalisations and deaths caused by COVID-19 disease. We find that precautionary breaks provide the biggest gains when the growth rate is low, but offer a much needed brake on increasing infection when the growth rate is higher, potentially allowing other measures to regain control.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.