Containment to outbreak tipping points in COVID-19

Abstract Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been a cornerstone in managing emergent diseases such as COVID-19 1–4 . However, despite their potential to contain or attenuate the epidemic, the effects of NPIs on disease dynamics are not well understood 1,5–7 . We show that saturation of NPIs with the increase in infected individuals, an expected consequence of limited contact tracing and healthcare capacities, produces a positive feedback in the disease growth rate and a threshold between two alternative states--containment and outbreak 8 . These alternative states were previously related with the strength of NPIs but not with the infection number 2,9–11 . Furthermore, the transition between these states involves an abrupt acceleration in disease dynamics, which we report here for several COVID-19 outbreaks around the world. The consequences of a positive feedback in population dynamics at low numbers is a phenomenon widely studied in ecology--the Allee effect. This effect is a determinant of extinction-outbreak states, geographic synchronization, spatial spread, and the effect of exogenous variables, as vaccination 12–15 . As countries are relaxing containing measures, recognizing an NPI-induced Allee effect may be essential for deploying containment strategies within and among countries 16 and acknowledges the need for early warning indicators of approaching epidemic tipping points 17 .