Truszkowska Agnieszka, Zino Lorenzo, Butail Sachit, Caroppo Emanuele, Jiang Zhong-Ping, Rizzo Alessandro, Porfiri Maurizio
Center for Urban Science and Progress Tandon School of Engineering New York University 370 Jay Street Brooklyn NY 11201 USA.
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Tandon School of Engineering New York University Six MetroTech Center Brooklyn NY 11201 USA.
Adv Theory Simul. 2023 Jan;6(1):2200481. doi: 10.1002/adts.202200481. Epub 2022 Nov 11.
Our efforts as a society to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are continuously challenged by the emergence of new variants. These variants can be more infectious than existing strains and many of them are also more resistant to available vaccines. The appearance of these new variants cause new surges of infections, exacerbated by infrastructural difficulties, such as shortages of medical personnel or test kits. In this work, a high-resolution computational framework for modeling the simultaneous spread of two COVID-19 variants: a widely spread base variant and a new one, is established. The computational framework consists of a detailed database of a representative U.S. town and a high-resolution agent-based model that uses the Omicron variant as the base variant and offers flexibility in the incorporation of new variants. The results suggest that the spread of new variants can be contained with highly efficacious tests and mild loss of vaccine protection. However, the aggressiveness of the ongoing Omicron variant and the current waning vaccine immunity point to an endemic phase of COVID-19, in which multiple variants will coexist and residents continue to suffer from infections.
我们社会抗击持续的新冠疫情的努力不断受到新变种出现的挑战。这些变种可能比现有毒株更具传染性，而且其中许多对现有疫苗也更具抗性。这些新变种的出现导致新的感染激增，而基础设施困难，如医务人员或检测试剂盒短缺，使情况更加恶化。在这项工作中，建立了一个高分辨率计算框架，用于模拟两种新冠变种（一种广泛传播的基础变种和一种新变种）的同时传播。该计算框架由一个具有代表性的美国城镇的详细数据库和一个高分辨率基于主体的模型组成，该模型以奥密克戎变种为基础变种，并在纳入新变种方面具有灵活性。结果表明，通过高效检测和疫苗保护效力的轻微下降，可以控制新变种的传播。然而，当前奥密克戎变种的侵袭性以及疫苗免疫力的逐渐减弱表明新冠疫情进入了一个地方流行阶段，在此阶段多种变种将共存，居民将继续遭受感染。
