Optimal Control Measures Based on the Reconstruction of the COVID-19 Interlocalilty Transmission Network in Lebanon

In this paper, we study the evolution of COVID-19 in Lebanon using the data collected by the Epidemiological Surveillance Program of Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health. We develop an autoregressive model that allows us to decompose the mean number of infections into three components that describe: intra-locality infections, inter-locality infections, and infections from other sources such as travelers arriving from abroad. We observe that the inter-locality term, which we identify as a time-evolving network, drives the dynamics of the disease. Tools from network analysis are then employed to get insight into its topology. Building on this, and particularly on the centrality of the nodes of the identified network, a strategy for intervention and disease control is devised.