Tracing contacts to evaluate the transmission of COVID-19 from highly exposed individuals in public transportation

We investigate, through a data-driven contact tracing model, the transmission of COVID-19 inside buses during distinct phases of the pandemic in a large Brazilian city. From this microscopic approach, we recover the networks of close contacts within consecutive time windows. A longitudinal comparison is then performed by upscaling the traced contacts with the transmission computed from a mean-field compartmental model for the entire city. Our results show that the effective reproduction numbers inside the buses, $$Re^{bus}$$ R e bus , and in the city, $$Re^{city}$$ R e city , followed a compatible behavior during the first wave of the local outbreak. Moreover, by distinguishing the close contacts of healthcare workers in the buses, we discovered that their transmission, $$Re^{health}$$ R e health , during the same period, was systematically higher than $$Re^{bus}$$ R e bus . This result reinforces the need for special public transportation policies for highly exposed groups of people.