The epidemicity index of recurrent SARS-CoV-2 infections

Several indices can predict the long-term fate of emerging infectious diseases and the effect of their containment measures, including a variety of reproduction numbers (e.g. R). Other indices evaluate the potential for transient increases of epidemics eventually doomed to disappearance, based on generalized reactivity analysis. They identify conditions for perturbations to a stable disease-free equilibrium (R0<1) to grow, possibly causing significant damage. Here, we introduce the epidemicity index e0, a threshold-type indicator: if e0 > 0, initial foci may cause infection peaks even if R0<1. Therefore, effective containment measures should achieve a negative epidemicity index. We use spatially explicit models to rank containment measures for projected evolutions of the ongoing pandemic in Italy. There, we show that, while the effective reproduction number was below one for a sizable timespan, epidemicity remained positive, allowing recurrent infection flare-ups well before the major epidemic rebounding observed in the fall.