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Simulation-based what-if analysis for controlling the spread of Covid-19 in universities.

ABSTRACT: A simulation model is developed to analyze the spread of covid-19 in universities. The model can be used to conduct a what-if analysis and estimate infection cases under different policies. For proof-of-concept, the model is simulated for a hypothetical university of 25,000 students and 3,000 faculty/staff in a U.S. college town. Simulation results show that early outbreaks are very likely, and there is no silver bullet to avoid them. Instead, a combination of policies should be carefully implemented. The results suggest (almost) full remote university operations from the beginning of the semester. In a less-preferred alternative, if universities decide to have students attend in person, they should encourage remote operations for high-risk individuals, conduct frequent rapid tests, enforce mask use, communicate with students and employees about the risks, and promote social distancing. Universities should be willing to move to remote operations if cases rise. Under this scenario, and considering implementation challenges, many universities are still likely to experience an early outbreak, and the likelihood of having a case of death is worrisome. In the long run, students and faculty react to the risks, and even if universities decide to continue operations, classes are likely to have very low in-person attendance. Overall, our analysis depicts several sources of system complexities, negative unintended consequences of relying on a single policy, non-linear incremental effects, and positive synergies of implementing multiple policies. A simulation platform for a what-if analysis is offered so marginal effectiveness of different policies and different decision-making thresholds for closure can be tested for universities of varying populations.

SUBMITTER: Ghaffarzadegan N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7850497 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Simulation-based what-if analysis for controlling the spread of Covid-19 in universities.

Ghaffarzadegan Navid N

PloS one 20210201 2

A simulation model is developed to analyze the spread of covid-19 in universities. The model can be used to conduct a what-if analysis and estimate infection cases under different policies. For proof-of-concept, the model is simulated for a hypothetical university of 25,000 students and 3,000 faculty/staff in a U.S. college town. Simulation results show that early outbreaks are very likely, and there is no silver bullet to avoid them. Instead, a combination of policies should be carefully implem ...[more]

PMID: 33524045

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Project description:Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2). It was declared on March 11, 2020, by the World Health Organization as pandemic disease. The disease has neither approved medicine nor vaccine and has made governments and scholars search for drastic measures in combating the pandemic. Regrettably, the spread of the virus and mortality due to COVID-19 has continued to increase daily. Hence, it is imperative to control the spread of the disease particularly using nonpharmacological strategies such as quarantine, isolation, and public health education. This work studied the effect of these different control strategies as time-dependent interventions using mathematical modeling and optimal control approach to ascertain their contributions in the dynamic transmission of COVID-19. The model was proven to have an invariant region and was well-posed. The basic reproduction number and effective reproduction numbers were computed with and without interventions, respectively, and were used to carry out the sensitivity analysis that identified the critical parameters contributing to the spread of COVID-19. The optimal control analysis was carried out using the Pontryagin's maximum principle to figure out the optimal strategy necessary to curtail the disease. The findings of the optimal control analysis and numerical simulations revealed that time-dependent interventions reduced the number of exposed and infected individuals compared to time-independent interventions. These interventions were time-bound and best implemented within the first 100 days of the outbreak. Again, the combined implementation of only two of these interventions produced a good result in reducing infection in the population. While, the combined implementation of all three interventions performed better, even though zero infection was not achieved in the population. This implied that multiple interventions need to be deployed early in order to reduce the virus to the barest minimum.

Project description:As society has moved past the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis that relied on broad-spectrum shutdowns as a stopgap method, industries and institutions have faced the daunting question of how to return to a stabilized state of activities and more fully reopen the economy. A core problem is how to return people to their workplaces and educational institutions in a manner that is safe, ethical, grounded in science, and takes into account the unique factors and needs of each organization and community. In this paper, we introduce an epidemiological model (the "Community-Workplace" model) that accounts for SARS-CoV-2 transmission within the workplace, within the surrounding community, and between them. We use this multi-group deterministic compartmental model to consider various testing strategies that, together with symptom screening, exposure tracking, and nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPI) such as mask wearing and physical distancing, aim to reduce disease spread in the workplace. Our framework is designed to be adaptable to a variety of specific workplace environments to support planning efforts as reopenings continue. Using this model, we consider a number of case studies, including an office workplace, a factory floor, and a university campus. Analysis of these cases illustrates that continuous testing can help a workplace avoid an outbreak by reducing undetected infectiousness even in high-contact environments. We find that a university setting, where individuals spend more time on campus and have a higher contact load, requires more testing to remain safe, compared to a factory or office setting. Under the modeling assumptions, we find that maintaining a prevalence below 3% can be achieved in an office setting by testing its workforce every two weeks, whereas achieving this same goal for a university could require as much as fourfold more testing (i.e., testing the entire campus population twice a week). Our model also simulates the dynamics of reduced spread that result from the introduction of mitigation measures when test results reveal the early stages of a workplace outbreak. We use this to show that a vigilant university that has the ability to quickly react to outbreaks can be justified in implementing testing at the same rate as a lower-risk office workplace. Finally, we quantify the devastating impact that an outbreak in a small-town college could have on the surrounding community, which supports the notion that communities can be better protected by supporting their local places of business in preventing onsite spread of disease.

Project description:BackgroundDuring March of 2020 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) guidance as the primary mitigation strategy against growing COVID-19 community spread due to the absence of a vaccine or effective treatment at that time. CDC guidance states that NPIs are most effective when instituted in an early, targeted, and layered fashion. NPIs are effective in slowing spread, and measures should be custom-tailored to each population. This study examines factors associated with implementation and timing of NPI interventions across large public and private U.S. universities at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsNPI decisions of interest include when U.S. universities canceled international travel, shifted to online learning, moved faculty/staff to remote work, limited campus housing, and closed campus for all non-essential personnel. Cox proportional hazard analyses of retrospective data were conducted to assess the time to NPI events. Hazard ratios were calculated for university governance, campus setting, religious affiliation, health infrastructure, faculty diversity, and student demographics. The methods control for variance inflation factors, COVID case prevalence, and time varying covariates of spring break and states' state of emergency (SOE) orders. This study captures NPI decisions at 575 U.S. universities during spring of 2020 which affected the movement of seven million students and two million employees.ResultsUniversities located in districts represented by Democratic party congressional members reported earlier NPI implementation than Republican (Cox proportional hazard ratio (HR) range 0.61-0.80). University religious affiliation was not associated with the timing any of the NPI decisions. Universities with more diverse faculty showed an association with earlier NPI implementation (HR range 0.65-0.76). The existence of university-affiliated health infrastructure was not associated with NPI timing.ConclusionUniversity NPI implementation was largely driven by local COVID-19 epidemiology, culture and political concerns. The timing of university NPI decisions varied by regional politics, faculty demographics, university governance, campus setting, and foreign student prevalence adjusting for COVID-19 state case prevalence and spring break timing. Religious affiliation and presence of university health infrastructure were not associated with timing.

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Simulation-based what-if analysis for controlling the spread of Covid-19 in universities.

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Simulation-based what-if analysis for controlling the spread of Covid-19 in universities.

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