McCreesh, N;
Dlamini, V;
Edwards, A;
Olivier, S;
Dayi, N;
Dikgale, K;
Nxumalo, S;
... Harling, G; + view all
(2020)
Impact of social distancing regulations and epidemic risk perception on social contact and SARS-CoV-2 transmission potential in rural South Africa: analysis of repeated cross-sectional surveys.
medRxiv
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Abstract
Background: South Africa implemented rapid and strict physical distancing regulations to minimize SARS-CoV-2 epidemic spread. Evidence on the impact of such measures on interpersonal contact in rural and lower-income settings is limited. Methods: We compared population-representative social contact surveys conducted in the same rural KwaZulu-Natal location once in 2019 and twice in mid-2020. Respondents reported characteristics of physical and conversational ('close interaction') contacts over 24 hours. We built age-mixing matrices and estimated the proportional change in the SARS-CoV-2 reproduction number (R 0 ). Respondents also reported counts of others present at locations visited and transport used, from which we evaluated change in potential exposure to airborne infection due to shared indoor space ('shared air'). Results: Respondents in March-December 2019 (n=1704) reported a mean of 7.4 close interaction contacts and 196 shared air person-hours beyond their homes. Respondents in June-July 2020 (n=216), as the epidemic peaked locally, reported 4.1 close interaction contacts and 21 shared air person-hours outside their home, with significant declines in others' homes and public spaces. Adults aged over 50 had fewer close contacts with others over 50, but little change in contact with 15-29 year olds, reflecting ongoing contact within multigenerational households. We estimate potential R 0 fell by 42% (95% plausible range 14-59%) between 2019 and June-July 2020. Discussion: Extra-household social contact fell substantially following imposition of Covid-19 distancing regulations in rural South Africa. Ongoing contact within intergenerational households highlighted the limitation of social distancing measures in protecting older adults. Funding: Wellcome Trust, UKRI, DFID, European Union.
| Type: | Working / discussion paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | Impact of social distancing regulations and epidemic risk perception on social contact and SARS-CoV-2 transmission potential in rural South Africa: analysis of repeated cross-sectional surveys. |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1101/2020.12.01.20241877 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.01.20241877 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10118054 |
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