{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008470","title":"The value of decreasing the duration of the infectious period of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection","abstract":"Finding medications or vaccines that may decrease the infectious period of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) could potentially reduce transmission in the broader population. We developed a computational model of the U.S. simulating the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the potential clinical and economic impact of reducing the infectious period duration. Simulation experiments found that reducing the average infectious period duration could avert a median of 442,852 [treating 25% of symptomatic cases, reducing by 0.5 days, reproductive number (R0) 3.5, and starting treatment when 15% of the population has been exposed] to 44.4 million SARS-CoV-2 cases (treating 75% of all infected cases, reducing by 3.5 days, R0 2.0). With R0 2.5, reducing the average infectious period duration by 0.5 days for 25% of symptomatic cases averted 1.4 million cases and 99,398 hospitalizations; increasing to 75% of symptomatic cases averted 2.8 million cases. At $500/person, treating 25% of symptomatic cases saved $209.5 billion (societal perspective). Further reducing the average infectious period duration by 3.5 days averted 7.4 million cases (treating 25% of symptomatic cases). Expanding treatment to 75% of all infected cases, including asymptomatic infections (R0 2.5), averted 35.9 million cases and 4 million hospitalizations, saving $48.8 billion (societal perspective and starting treatment after 5% of the population has been exposed). Our study quantifies the potential effects of reducing the SARS-CoV-2 infectious period duration.","journal":"PLoS Computational Biology","year":2021,"id":187150,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":18,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.96,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":231470,"name":"Sarah M. Bartsch","orcid":"0000-0002-0523-4717","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":234185,"name":"Marie C. Ferguson","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231473,"name":"Patrick T. Wedlock","orcid":"0000-0001-7635-5949","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231471,"name":"Kelly J. O’Shea","orcid":"0000-0003-4957-5975","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":234187,"name":"Sheryl S. Siegmund","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231475,"name":"Sarah N. Cox","orcid":"0000-0002-2447-0504","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":234186,"name":"James A. McKinnell","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231476,"name":"Bruce Y. Lee","orcid":"0000-0003-2633-8651","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":53,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:48:51.315888Z","pmid":"33411742","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}