Report 32: Targeting interventions to age groups that sustain COVID-19 transmission in the United States

Abstract

Following ini􀀂al declines, in mid 2020, a resurgence in transmission of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has occurred in the United States and parts of Europe. Despite the wide implementa􀀂on of non-pharmaceu􀀂cal inter-ven􀀂ons, it is s􀀂ll not known how they are impacted by changing contact pa􀀁erns, age and other demographics. As COVID-19 disease control becomes more localised, understanding the age demographics driving transmission and how these impact the loosening of interven􀀂ons such as school reopening is crucial. Considering dynamics for the United States, we analyse aggregated, age-specific mobility trends from more than 10 million individuals and link these mechanis􀀂cally to age-specific COVID-19 mortality data. In contrast to previous approaches, we link mobility to mortality via age specific contact pa􀀁erns and use this rich rela􀀂onship to reconstruct accurate trans-mission dynamics. Contrary to anecdotal evidence, we find li􀀁le support for age-shi􀀃s in contact and transmission dynamics over 􀀂me. We es􀀂mate that, un􀀂l August, 63.4% [60.9%-65.5%] of SARS-CoV-2 infec􀀂ons in the United States originated from adults aged 20-49, while 1.2% [0.8%-1.8%] originated from children aged 0-9. In areas with con􀀂nued, community-wide transmission, our transmission model predicts that re-opening kindergartens and el-ementary schools could facilitate spread and lead to considerable excess COVID-19 a􀀁ributable deaths over a 90-day period. These findings indicate that targe􀀂ng interven􀀂ons to adults aged 20-49 are an important con-sidera􀀂on in hal􀀂ng resurgent epidemics, and preven􀀂ng COVID-19-a􀀁ributable deaths when kindergartens and elementary schools reopen.