ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has circled the globe, rapidly expanding into a pandemic within a matter of weeks. While early studies revealed important features of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, the role of variation in free-living virus survival in modulating the dynamics of outbreaks remains unclear and controversial. Using an empirically determined understanding of the natural history of SARS-CoV-2 infection and detailed, country-level case data, we elucidate how variation in free-living virus survival influences key features of COVID-19 epidemics. Our findings suggest that environmental transmission can have a subtle, yet significant influence on COVID-19’s basic reproductive number () and other key signatures of outbreak intensity. Summarizing, we propose that variation in environmental transmission may explain some observed differences in disease dynamics from setting to setting, and can inform public health interventions.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
ALM would like to acknowledge NIH U54GM115677 for funding support.
Author Declarations
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Data Availability
Data are either available or the source is referenced in the main text and supplemental information. The code used for the analyses in this study is publicly available on Github: https://github.com/OgPlexus/Copperland