How risky is it to visit a supermarket during the pandemic?

Autor: Tsukanov AA; Center for Computational and Data-Intensive Science and Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia., Senjkevich AM; Center for Computational and Data-Intensive Science and Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia., Fedorov MV; Center for Computational and Data-Intensive Science and Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia., Brilliantov NV; Center for Computational and Data-Intensive Science and Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia.; Department of Mathematics, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2021 Jul 01; Vol. 16 (7), pp. e0253835. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Jul 01 (Print Publication: 2021).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253835
Abstrakt: We performed large-scale numerical simulations using a composite model to investigate the infection spread in a supermarket during a pandemic. The model is composed of the social force, purchasing strategy and infection transmission models. Specifically, we quantified the infection risk for customers while in a supermarket that depended on the number of customers, the purchase strategies and the physical layout of the supermarket. The ratio of new infections compared to sales efficiency (earned profit for customer purchases) was computed as a factor of customer density and social distance. Our results indicate that the social distance between customers is the primary factor influencing infection rate. Supermarket layout and purchasing strategy do not impact social distance and hence the spread of infection. Moreover, we found only a weak dependence of sales efficiency and customer density. We believe that our study will help to establish scientifically-based safety rules that will reduce the social price of supermarket business.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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