Department of Applied Mathematics, University of California, Merced, 5200 North Lake Rd., Merced, CA, 95343, USA.
Health Sciences Research Institute, University of California, Merced, 5200 North Lake Rd., Merced, CA, 95343, USA.
Bull Math Biol. 2023 Jan 13;85(2):13. doi: 10.1007/s11538-022-01107-2.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many higher educational institutions moved their courses on-line in hopes of slowing disease spread. The advent of multiple highly-effective vaccines offers the promise of a return to "normal" in-person operations, but it is not clear if-or for how long-campuses should employ non-pharmaceutical interventions such as requiring masks or capping the size of in-person courses. In this study, we develop and fine-tune a model of COVID-19 spread to UC Merced's student and faculty population. We perform a global sensitivity analysis to consider how both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions impact disease spread. Our work reveals that vaccines alone may not be sufficient to eradicate disease dynamics and that significant contact with an infectious surrounding community will maintain infections on-campus. Our work provides a foundation for higher-education planning allowing campuses to balance the benefits of in-person instruction with the ability to quarantine/isolate infectious individuals.
针对 COVID-19 大流行，许多高等教育机构将课程转移到线上，以期减缓疾病传播。多种高效疫苗的出现有望恢复面对面的“正常”运营，但尚不清楚校园是否应该采用非药物干预措施，例如要求戴口罩或限制面对面课程的规模，以及会持续多久。在这项研究中，我们针对默塞德加州大学的学生和教职员工人群开发和微调了 COVID-19 传播模型。我们进行了全局敏感性分析，以考虑药物和非药物干预措施如何影响疾病传播。我们的研究结果表明，仅疫苗可能不足以消除疾病动态，与传染性周边社区的大量接触将导致校内感染。我们的工作为高等教育规划提供了基础，使校园能够平衡面对面教学的好处与隔离传染性个体的能力。
