Simple modeling tool developed for business executives can help them plan to reopen their workplace with stringent safety measures after the COVID-19 lockdown.

‘Reopening business entities after COVID lockdown is only feasible if stringent safety measures are taken.
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To help entrepreneurs decide on how they can safely reopen their business, mathematicians and statisticians here develop a model for the spread of infections within companies and the economic payoff of safety measures. 




"Our aim was to provide a quantitative yet simple modeling tool for business executives to plan for reopening their workplace," says lead author Prof Hongyu Miao, Director of the Center for Biostatistics Collaboration and Data Services at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Texas.
The authors show mathematically that, under a wide range of parameters, reopening your business will only be feasible if at least these safety measures are adopted: wearing goggles, gloves, and masks (when employees aren't alone); frequent hand washing; routine sanitation of the work floor; social distancing; monitoring body temperature; and quarantine of exposed and sick employees. These measures won't only control the spread of Covid-19 within the company, but also increase your net profit under the assumptions of the model.
"We show that a business entity may stand a good opportunity to generate positive net profit after reopening only if necessary protection measures are strictly implemented," warns Miao. "It is also very important to monitor the number of infections through virus testing and contact tracing, especially at the early stage of reopening."
About the model
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In addition, the authors modeled the net profit, based on the average salary and productivity of US workers, the cost of PPE and other safety measures, and the reduction in productivity expected from a limit on working hours and the need for distancing. The estimated values for key parameters from the literature, for example, the effectiveness of PPE in preventing transmission, the expected price tag of these measures, and the dynamics of infection.
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The authors then took a large, well-known Texan company as a hypothetical example. Under the least safe scenario, where no safety measures are taken, the prevalence of Covid-19 within the company steadily rises to become 30-fold higher than in the general US population, indicating that reopening won't be feasible. Under the safest scenario, where all possible safety measures are adopted, its prevalence falls to 104-fold lower than in the population, resulting in a higher and more stable net profit.
Results are similar under the second-safest scenario, where only the most expensive measures are omitted - non-contact sensors for real-time fever detection, reducing working hours by 30% to limit exposure, and UV purification or High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters that prevent viral transmission in aerosols. Finally, under the third-safest scenario, where employees further drop the use of PPE, the workplace again quickly becomes a "hot spot" of infection, resulting in a lower net profit.
Source-Eurekalert