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1. Sociocultural determinants of global mask-wearing behavior

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2213525119  

   Yang, Luojun; Constantino, Sara M.; Grenfell, Bryan T.; Weber, Elke U.; Levin, Simon A.; Vasconcelos, Vítor V. (October 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Behavioral responses influence the trajectories of epidemics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) reduced pathogen transmission and mortality worldwide. However, despite the global pandemic threat, there was substantial cross-country variation in the adoption of protective behaviors that is not explained by disease prevalence alone. In particular, many countries show a pattern of slow initial mask adoption followed by sharp transitions to high acceptance rates. These patterns are characteristic of behaviors that depend on social norms or peer influence. We develop a game-theoretic model of mask wearing where the utility of wearing a mask depends on the perceived risk of infection, social norms, and mandates from formal institutions. In this model, increasing pathogen transmission or policy stringency can trigger social tipping points in collective mask wearing. We show that complex social dynamics can emerge from simple individual interactions and that sociocultural variables and local policies are important for recovering cross-country variation in the speed and breadth of mask adoption. These results have implications for public health policy and data collection. 

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2. Do We Overestimate the Impact of Carbon Dioxide on Cognition and Decision-Making?: Preliminary Evidence

   Hurley, Rachel; Belyamani, Mohamed; Djamasbi, Soussan; Somasse, Gbetonmasse; Strauss, Sarah; Liu, Shichao (July 2022, The 5th International Conference on Building Energy & Environment (COBEE))

   The purpose of this study is to investigate the combined impact of mask-wearing on cognitive performance and risk-taking behaviors. Participants were divided into a control group (N=24) without and an experimental group (N=27) with a surgical mask. Both groups completed the tasks in a warm environment (30 oC) where the conditions can reduce cognition and decision-making as well. These conditions are common in indoor spaces without sufficient air conditioning during a heat wave. Cognition and risk-taking behaviors were assessed using computerized tests. Results showed that mask-wearing in warm environment did not negatively impact cognitive performance, nor did it increase risk-taking behavior as the concept of risk compensation predicts, even when the CO2 concentration was elevated to approximately 29,000 ppm on average inside the mask. On the contrary, mask-wearing participants showed less risk-taking behaviors, slightly better response inhibition and better short-term memory. These results do not support previous findings suggesting that even a moderately increased indoor CO2 level can reduce cognition. We hypothesize that human adaptation effects (due to mask-wearing on a daily basis) make people less vulnerable to the adverse environment (i.e., excessive air temperature and CO2 levels), which will be investigated in the future studies. 

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3. Understanding the coevolution of mask wearing and epidemics: A network perspective

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2123355119  

   Qiu, Zirou; Espinoza, Baltazar; Vasconcelos, Vitor V.; Chen, Chen; Constantino, Sara M.; Crabtree, Stefani A.; Yang, Luojun; Vullikanti, Anil; Chen, Jiangzhuo; Weibull, Jörgen; et al (June 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as mask wearing can be effective in mitigating the spread of infectious diseases. Therefore, understanding the behavioral dynamics of NPIs is critical for characterizing the dynamics of disease spread. Nevertheless, standard infection models tend to focus only on disease states, overlooking the dynamics of “beneficial contagions,” e.g., compliance with NPIs. In this work, we investigate the concurrent spread of disease and mask-wearing behavior over multiplex networks. Our proposed framework captures both the competing and complementary relationships between the dueling contagion processes. Further, the model accounts for various behavioral mechanisms that influence mask wearing, such as peer pressure and fear of infection. Our results reveal that under the coupled disease–behavior dynamics, the attack rate of a disease—as a function of transition probability—exhibits a critical transition. Specifically, as the transmission probability exceeds a critical threshold, the attack rate decreases abruptly due to sustained mask-wearing responses. We empirically explore the causes of the critical transition and demonstrate the robustness of the observed phenomena. Our results highlight that without proper enforcement of NPIs, reductions in the disease transmission probability via other interventions may not be sufficient to reduce the final epidemic size. 

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4. Mask images on Twitter increase during COVID-19 mandates, especially in Republican counties

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23368-6  

   Lin, Xiaofeng; Kernell, Georgia; Groeling, Tim; Joo, Jungseock; Luo, Jun; Steinert-Threlkeld, Zachary C. (December 2022, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract Wearing masks reduces the spread of COVID-19, but compliance with mask mandates varies across individuals, time, and space. Accurate and continuous measures of mask wearing, as well as other health-related behaviors, are important for public health policies. This article presents a novel approach to estimate mask wearing using geotagged Twitter image data from March through September, 2020 in the United States. We validate our measure using public opinion survey data and extend the analysis to investigate county-level differences in mask wearing. We find a strong association between mask mandates and mask wearing—an average increase of 20%. Moreover, this association is greatest in Republican-leaning counties. The findings have important implications for understanding how governmental policies shape and monitor citizen responses to public health crises. 

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5. Toward Achieving a Vaccine-Derived Herd Immunity Threshold for COVID-19 in the U.S.

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.709369  

   Gumel, Abba B.; Iboi, Enahoro A.; Ngonghala, Calistus N.; Ngwa, Gideon A. (July 2021, Frontiers in Public Health)

   A novel coronavirus emerged in December of 2019 (COVID-19), causing a pandemic that inflicted unprecedented public health and economic burden in all nooks and corners of the world. Although the control of COVID-19 largely focused on the use of basic public health measures (primarily based on using non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as quarantine, isolation, social-distancing, face mask usage, and community lockdowns) initially, three safe and highly-effective vaccines (by AstraZeneca Inc., Moderna Inc., and Pfizer Inc.), were approved for use in humans in December 2020. We present a new mathematical model for assessing the population-level impact of these vaccines on curtailing the burden of COVID-19. The model stratifies the total population into two subgroups, based on whether or not they habitually wear face mask in public. The resulting multigroup model, which takes the form of a deterministic system of nonlinear differential equations, is fitted and parameterized using COVID-19 cumulative mortality data for the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Conditions for the asymptotic stability of the associated disease-free equilibrium, as well as an expression for the vaccine-derived herd immunity threshold, are rigorously derived. Numerical simulations of the model show that the size of the initial proportion of individuals in the mask-wearing group, together with positive change in behavior from the non-mask wearing group (as well as those in the mask-wearing group, who do not abandon their mask-wearing habit) play a crucial role in effectively curtailing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. This study further shows that the prospect of achieving vaccine-derived herd immunity (required for COVID-19 elimination) in the U.S., using the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, is quite promising. In particular, our study shows that herd immunity can be achieved in the U.S. if at least 60% of the population are fully vaccinated. Furthermore, the prospect of eliminating the pandemic in the U.S. in the year 2021 is significantly enhanced if the vaccination program is complemented with non-pharmaceutical interventions at moderate increased levels of compliance (in relation to their baseline compliance). The study further suggests that, while the waning of natural and vaccine-derived immunity against COVID-19 induces only a marginal increase in the burden and projected time-to-elimination of the pandemic, adding the impacts of therapeutic benefits of the vaccines into the model resulted in a dramatic reduction in the burden and time-to-elimination of the pandemic. 

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