| Abstract: |
| We present a deterministic transmission dynamic compartmental model for the spread of the novel coronavirus on a college campus for the purpose of investigating strategies to mitigate an outbreak. It is the goal of this project to determine the utility of certain containment strategies including gateway testing, surveillance testing, and contact tracing. It is assumed that students and faculty/staff take part in standard public health practices to reduce the spread such as mask wearing, hand washing, and social distancing. These efforts are modeled by relative changes in the contact rates between populations. We modify a standard SEIR type model to reflect what is known about COVID-19, in particular the existence of asymptomatic carriers. We also modify the model to reflect the population present on a college campus, separating into students and faculty. We determine effectiveness of mitigation measures by looking at relative changes in the total number of cases as well as the effect a measure has on the estimated basic reproductive number. We present model fitting to data collected at various universities during Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters. In addition we explore the effect of superspreader events as well as time-varying parameters. |
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