Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations

Effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic require integrating behavioral factors such as risk-driven contact reduction, improved treatment, and adherence fatigue with asymptomatic transmission, disease acuity, and hospital capacity. We build one such model and estimate it for all 92 nations with...

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Main Authors: Rahmandad, Hazhir, Lim, Tse Yang, Sterman, John
Other Authors: Sloan School of Management
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/131112
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author Rahmandad, Hazhir
Lim, Tse Yang
Sterman, John
author2 Sloan School of Management
author_facet Sloan School of Management
Rahmandad, Hazhir
Lim, Tse Yang
Sterman, John
author_sort Rahmandad, Hazhir
collection MIT
description Effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic require integrating behavioral factors such as risk-driven contact reduction, improved treatment, and adherence fatigue with asymptomatic transmission, disease acuity, and hospital capacity. We build one such model and estimate it for all 92 nations with reliable testing data. Cumulative cases and deaths through 22 December 2020 are estimated to be 7.03 and 1.44 times official reports, yielding an infection fatality rate (IFR) of 0.51 percent, which has been declining over time. Absent adherence fatigue, cumulative cases would have been 47 percent lower. Scenarios through June 2021 show that modest improvement in responsiveness could reduce cases and deaths by about 14 percent, more than the impact of vaccinating half of the population by that date. Variations in responsiveness to risk explain two orders of magnitude difference in per-capita deaths despite reproduction numbers fluctuating around one across nations. A public online simulator facilitates scenario analysis over the coming months.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1311122022-09-29T23:48:01Z Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations Rahmandad, Hazhir Lim, Tse Yang Sterman, John Sloan School of Management Effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic require integrating behavioral factors such as risk-driven contact reduction, improved treatment, and adherence fatigue with asymptomatic transmission, disease acuity, and hospital capacity. We build one such model and estimate it for all 92 nations with reliable testing data. Cumulative cases and deaths through 22 December 2020 are estimated to be 7.03 and 1.44 times official reports, yielding an infection fatality rate (IFR) of 0.51 percent, which has been declining over time. Absent adherence fatigue, cumulative cases would have been 47 percent lower. Scenarios through June 2021 show that modest improvement in responsiveness could reduce cases and deaths by about 14 percent, more than the impact of vaccinating half of the population by that date. Variations in responsiveness to risk explain two orders of magnitude difference in per-capita deaths despite reproduction numbers fluctuating around one across nations. A public online simulator facilitates scenario analysis over the coming months. 2021-07-20T14:36:23Z 2021-07-20T14:36:23Z 2021-01 2021-07-19T12:32:15Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0883-7066 1099-1727 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/131112 Rahmandad, Hazhir et al. "Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations." System Dynamics Review 37, 1 (January 2021): 5-31. © 2021 System Dynamics Society en http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sdr.1673 System Dynamics Review Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Wiley SSRN
spellingShingle Rahmandad, Hazhir
Lim, Tse Yang
Sterman, John
Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations
title Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations
title_full Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations
title_fullStr Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations
title_full_unstemmed Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations
title_short Behavioral dynamics of COVID‐19: estimating underreporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 92 nations
title_sort behavioral dynamics of covid 19 estimating underreporting multiple waves and adherence fatigue across 92 nations
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/131112
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AT stermanjohn behavioraldynamicsofcovid19estimatingunderreportingmultiplewavesandadherencefatigueacross92nations