Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link Skip directly to A-Z link Skip directly to A-Z link
Volume 31, Number 1—January 2025
Research

Social Contact Patterns and Age Mixing before and during COVID-19 Pandemic, Greece, January 2020–October 2021

Vasiliki Engeli, Sotirios Roussos, Nikolaos Demiris, Angelos Hatzakis, and Vana SypsaComments to Author 
Author affiliation: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece (V. Engeli, S. Roussos, A. Hatzakis, V. Sypsa); Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens (N. Demiris)

Main Article

Figure 6

Mean reduction in R0 caused by physical distancing measures during COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020–October 2021) compared with prepandemic period (January 2020) in study of social contact patterns and age mixing before and during COVID-19 pandemic, Greece. R0 reduction was obtained by comparing social contacts data from each study period during the pandemic to the prepandemic period (January 2020). Error bars indicate 95% CIs. Shaded areas indicate lockdown periods. Dashed horizontal line indicates the minimum reduction needed to bring R0 to <1, assuming R0 is equal to 2.38 (15). R0, basic reproduction number.

Figure 6. Mean reduction in R0 caused by physical distancing measures during COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020–October 2021) compared with prepandemic period (January 2020) in study of social contact patterns and age mixing before and during COVID-19 pandemic, Greece. R0 reduction was obtained by comparing social contacts data from each study period during the pandemic to the prepandemic period (January 2020). Error bars indicate 95% CIs. Shaded areas indicate lockdown periods. Dashed horizontal line indicates the minimum reduction needed to bring R0 to <1, assuming R0 is equal to 2.38 (15). R0, basic reproduction number.

Main Article

References
  1. Bell  DM; World Health Organization Working Group on International and Community Transmission of SARS. Public health interventions and SARS spread, 2003. Emerg Infect Dis. 2004;10:1900–6. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  2. Davis  BM, Markel  H, Navarro  A, Wells  E, Monto  AS, Aiello  AE. The effect of reactive school closure on community influenza-like illness counts in the state of Michigan during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Clin Infect Dis. 2015;60:e90–7. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  3. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Considerations relating to social distancing measures in response to COVID-19–second update. Stockholm: The Centre; 2020.
  4. Hens  N, Ayele  GM, Goeyvaerts  N, Aerts  M, Mossong  J, Edmunds  JW, et al. Estimating the impact of school closure on social mixing behaviour and the transmission of close contact infections in eight European countries. BMC Infect Dis. 2009;9:187. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  5. Mossong  J, Hens  N, Jit  M, Beutels  P, Auranen  K, Mikolajczyk  R, et al. Social contacts and mixing patterns relevant to the spread of infectious diseases. PLoS Med. 2008;5:e74. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  6. Gimma  A, Munday  JD, Wong  KLM, Coletti  P, van Zandvoort  K, Prem  K, et al.; CMMID COVID-19 working group. Changes in social contacts in England during the COVID-19 pandemic between March 2020 and March 2021 as measured by the CoMix survey: A repeated cross-sectional study. PLoS Med. 2022;19:e1003907. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  7. Prem  K, Zandvoort  KV, Klepac  P, Eggo  RM, Davies  NG, Cook  AR, et al.; Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases COVID-19 Working Group. Projecting contact matrices in 177 geographical regions: An update and comparison with empirical data for the COVID-19 era. [Erratum in: PLoS Comput Biol. 2024;20:e1012454]. PLOS Comput Biol. 2021;17:e1009098. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  8. Liu  CY, Berlin  J, Kiti  MC, Del Fava  E, Grow  A, Zagheni  E, et al. Rapid review of social contact patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Epidemiology. 2021;32:781–91. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  9. Wong  KLM, Gimma  A, Coletti  P, Faes  C, Beutels  P, Hens  N, et al.; CoMix Europe Working Group. Social contact patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic in 21 European countries - evidence from a two-year study. BMC Infect Dis. 2023;23:268. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  10. Drolet  M, Godbout  A, Mondor  M, Béraud  G, Drolet-Roy  L, Lemieux-Mellouki  P, et al. Time trends in social contacts before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: the CONNECT study. BMC Public Health. 2022;22:1032. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  11. Jarvis  CI, Gimma  A, Wong  KLM, van Zandvoort  K, Munday  JD, Klepac  P, et al. CoMix study—social contact survey in the UK [cited 2024 Sep 5]. https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/comix-reports.html
  12. Walde  J, Chaturvedi  M, Berger  T, Bartz  A, Killewald  R, Tomori  DV, et al. Effect of risk status for severe COVID-19 on individual contact behaviour during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020/2021-an analysis based on the German COVIMOD study. BMC Infect Dis. 2023;23:205. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  13. Breen  CF, Mahmud  AS, Feehan  DM. Novel estimates reveal subnational heterogeneities in disease-relevant contact patterns in the United States. PLOS Comput Biol. 2022;18:e1010742. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  14. Jarvis  CI, Coletti  P, Backer  JA, Munday  JD, Faes  C, Beutels  P, et al. Social contact patterns following the COVID-19 pandemic: a snapshot of post-pandemic behaviour from the CoMix study. Epidemics. 2024;48:100778. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  15. Sypsa  V, Roussos  S, Paraskevis  D, Lytras  T, Tsiodras  S, Hatzakis  A. Effects of social distancing measures during the first epidemic wave of severe acute respiratory syndrome infection, Greece. Emerg Infect Dis. 2021;27:452–62. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  16. Jarvis  CI, Van Zandvoort  K, Gimma  A, Prem  K, Klepac  P, Rubin  GJ, et al.; CMMID COVID-19 working group. Quantifying the impact of physical distance measures on the transmission of COVID-19 in the UK. BMC Med. 2020;18:124. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  17. Collett  D. Modelling binary data, 2nd edition. Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press; 2002.
  18. Tomori  DV, Rübsamen  N, Berger  T, Scholz  S, Walde  J, Wittenberg  I, et al. Individual social contact data and population mobility data as early markers of SARS-CoV-2 transmission dynamics during the first wave in Germany-an analysis based on the COVIMOD study. BMC Med. 2021;19:271. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  19. Bosetti  P, Huynh  B-T, Abdou  AY, Sanchez  M, Eisenhauer  C, Courtejoie  N, et al. Lockdown impact on age-specific contact patterns and behaviours, France, April 2020. Euro Surveill. 2021;26:2001636. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  20. World Health Organization. Pandemic fatigue—reinvigorating the public to prevent COVID-19. Policy framework for supporting pandemic prevention and management [cited 2024 Mar 12]. https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/337574/WHO-EURO-2020-1573-41324-56242-eng.pdf
  21. Dobreva  Z, Gimma  A, Rohan  H, Djoudalbaye  B, Tshangela  A, Jarvis  CI, et al. Characterising social contacts under COVID-19 control measures in Africa. BMC Med. 2022;20:344. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  22. Quaife  M, van Zandvoort  K, Gimma  A, Shah  K, McCreesh  N, Prem  K, et al.; CMMID COVID-19 Working Group. The impact of COVID-19 control measures on social contacts and transmission in Kenyan informal settlements. BMC Med. 2020;18:316. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  23. Manna  A, Koltai  J, Karsai  M. Importance of social inequalities to contact patterns, vaccine uptake, and epidemic dynamics. Nat Commun. 2024;15:4137. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  24. Latsuzbaia  A, Herold  M, Bertemes  JP, Mossong  J. Evolving social contact patterns during the COVID-19 crisis in Luxembourg. PLoS One. 2020;15:e0237128. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  25. Bargain  O, Aminjonov  U. Trust and compliance to public health policies in times of COVID-19. J Public Econ. 2020;192:104316. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  26. Backer  JA, Mollema  L, Vos  ER, Klinkenberg  D, van der Klis  FR, de Melker  HE, et al. Impact of physical distancing measures against COVID-19 on contacts and mixing patterns: repeated cross-sectional surveys, the Netherlands, 2016-17, April 2020 and June 2020. Euro Surveill. 2021;26:2000994. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  27. Zhang  J, Litvinova  M, Liang  Y, Wang  Y, Wang  W, Zhao  S, et al. Changes in contact patterns shape the dynamics of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Science. 2020;368:1481–6. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
  28. Akakzia  O, Friedrichs  V, Edmunds  J, Mossong  J. Comparison of paper diary vs computer assisted telephone interview for collecting social contact data relevant to the spread of airborne infectious diseases. Eur J Public Health. 2007;17(Supplement 2):189.
  29. Morciglio  A, Zhang  B, Chowell  G, Hyman  JM, Jiang  Y. Mask-ematics: modeling the effects of masks in COVID-19 transmission in high-risk environments. Epidemiologia (Basel). 2021;2:207–26. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar

Main Article

Page created: November 12, 2024
Page updated: December 22, 2024
Page reviewed: December 22, 2024
The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions. Use of trade names is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by any of the groups named above.
file_external