Predicting the impact of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical intervention on short- and medium-term dynamics of enterovirus D68 in the US
Sang Woo Park, Kevin Messacar, Daniel C. Douek, Alicen B. Spaulding, C. Jessica E. Metcalf, Bryan T. Grenfell
Abstract
Recent outbreaks of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) infections, and their causal linkage with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), continue to pose a serious public health concern. During 2020 and 2021, the dynamics of EV-D68 and other pathogens have been significantly perturbed by non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19; this perturbation presents a powerful natural experiment for exploring the dynamics of these endemic infections. In this study, we analyzed publicly available data on EV-D68 infections, originally collected through the New Vaccine Surveillance Network, to predict their short- and long-term dynamics following the COVID-19 interventions. Although long-term predictions are sensitive to our assumptions about underlying dynamics and changes in contact rates during the NPI periods, the likelihood of a large outbreak in 2023 appears to be low. Comprehensive surveillance data are needed to accurately characterize future dynamics of EV-D68. The limited incidence of AFM cases in 2022, despite large EV-D68 outbreaks, poses further questions for the timing of the next AFM outbreaks.