Context: All COVID cases and their contacts are considered highly infectious requiring isolation, which blocks the COVID isolation beds and disrupts life in the community.
Aim: To find out the effect of selective isolation and contact tracing of superspreaders as compared with the conventional ongoing protocol.
Settings and design: A mathematical model was designed to look at the effect of isolation and contact tracing of only those with high viral loads (superspreaders) on COVID-19 bed occupancy and overall mortality, in comparison with conventional protocol of isolation and contact tracing of all cases.
Materials and methods: An agent-based model, calibrated to the ongoing West Bengal COVID-19 data, was run for a total of 178 days to find out the effect of the interventions on COVID-19 bed occupancy and mortality.
Results: There is an impressive reduction in the occupancy of COVID isolation beds, even with the preintervention testing rate with no negative impact on mortality.
Conclusions: Strict isolation of superspreaders only, maybe highly effective in reducing the burden on health care and solving the COVID isolation bed crises if the testing rate is significantly increased.
Keywords: Coronavirus disease 2019; mathematical modeling; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; superspreader; viral load.
Copyright: © 2021 Indian Journal of Community Medicine.