The prestigious international journal Nature Communications publishes "A network model of Italy shows that intermittent regional strategies can alleviate the COVID-19 epidemic" a new study on the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

The research worked by prof. Fabio della Rossa (research line: dynamics of complex systems) together with the research group led by Prof. Mario di Bernardo together with colleagues Pietro De Lellis and Francesco Lo Iudice (Federico II), Davide Liuzza (ENEA) and Giovanni Russo (University of Salerno).

The research developed a mathematical model, based on the data collected during the national lockdown, where Italy is described as a network of 20 regions. The researchers studied the actions that each of the regions could take to control the spread of the pandemic and the flows of people traveling between them. In particular, it is shown that regional lockdown strategies, even for short periods of time, can be particularly effective in avoiding, or containing, new epidemic peaks by reducing the enormous economic costs of a national lockdown.

The study is available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18827-5