March 1, 2021

Retail Store Customer Flow and COVID-19 Transmission

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Transmission

Keywords (Tags): transmission

• A mathematical model analyzing retail customer flow and SARS-CoV-2 transmission found that then restricting customers to one-way movement could reduce transmission rates to less than one-third of the rate with two-way movement, if all customers comply and transmission occurs primarily through close contact. The model was calibrated using published epidemiologic data and predicted that for a medium-sized retail store in an area with relatively high COVID-19 prevalence, the transmission rate (via direct and wake exposure) would be 0.33 infections per day without complete one-way flow compliance. 

Shumsky et al. (Mar 16, 2021). Retail Store Customer Flow and COVID-19 Transmission. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2019225118