PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Updated
COVID-19 projections released today by PolicyLab at Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)
show that while spread of the virus is slowing in some hotspots
like Arizona and Florida, it is continuing to take hold in the
north and Midwest, overshadowing positive developments that have
emerged and creating risk of widespread transmission in places that
had previously worked hard to reduce case counts. This is evident
in the model's new four-week forecasts across these regions, as the
threat of resurgence grows from Milwaukee to Chicago and from Washington, D.C. to Boston.
For the past several weeks, PolicyLab's weekly projections have
suggested surging cases in the south could quickly spread north, a
scenario that is now playing out. In the Midwest and across the
Heartland, recent improvements have stalled, and projected cases
continue to rise in Indiana,
Kentucky, Ohio, Nebraska, Missouri and Oklahoma. Along the I-95 corridor, which our
researchers have been watching closely, forecasts are not improving
from Virginia up to Boston. The model shows conditions could be
tenuous in the coming weeks in Philadelphia's neighboring counties and
transmission risk has not weakened in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City, threatening resurgence in
America's largest city ahead of fall.
This growing risk is also playing out alongside schools
reopening, as students in some parts of the country are already
heading back to class or college campuses. In major college towns
like South Bend, Ind.,
Athens, Ga., Tuscaloosa, Ala., Lexington, Ky., and Knoxville, Tenn., where the risk of
transmission is already high, forecasts continue to raise concern
for rapid case growth as students return.
Though limited, there are a few encouraging exceptions in this
week's projections, particularly in places that have put strong
social distancing and masking mandates into place and where
residents have demonstrated commitment to these practices. This is
evident across Arizona and
New Mexico, which are both showing
improvement in the researchers' forecasts. New York state is doing well among its
neighbors in the Northeast, and despite troubling forecasts in the
Midwest, Michigan stands out as
having many counties with improving projections. Previous hotspots
like Orlando, Fla., are leading
the charge to flatten the curve through strong actions from local
leaders in the absence of a statewide strategy.
"As schools across the country face pressure to open for
in-person learning, it's hard not to feel that we're repeating the
mistakes we made in the spring of reopening too quickly before case
counts sufficiently degraded," said David
Rubin, MD, MSCE, director of PolicyLab at CHOP and a
professor of Pediatrics at the University of
Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. "This push,
along with renewed spread of the virus in the northern region of
the country, could create the perfect storm going into the fall,
leading to schools closing down again and rapid spread among
students and staff, worsening the epidemic across communities."
For additional comments from lead investigators Dr. Rubin, Dr.
Gregory Tasian, and Dr. Jing Huang
on their updated forecasts and findings, read this blog post:
https://policylab.chop.edu/blog/covid-19-outlook-running-out-time-and-out-patience
Background
Researchers at PolicyLab at CHOP and the
University of Pennsylvania developed
the model, known as COVID-Lab: Mapping COVID-19 in Your Community,
which tracks and projects COVID-19 transmission across 747 U.S.
counties with active outbreaks, representing 80% of the U.S.
population and 89% of all identified coronavirus cases. The
researchers built their model to observe how social distancing,
population density, daily temperatures, and humidity affect the
number and spread of COVID-19 infections over time across a county,
accounting for test positivity rates and population characteristics
such as age, insurance status, crowding within homes and diabetes
prevalence. COVID-Lab's projections forecast the number of
coronavirus cases communities could experience over the next four
weeks based on a three-day average of their current social
distancing practices, defined by the change in travel to
non-essential businesses as compared to pre-epidemic. The
application of this model, which focuses on time-varying
transmission rates during the early months of the pandemic in the
U.S., was released on July 23,
following peer review, in JAMA Network Open. You can read
more about how the team validates their models for accuracy in this
blog post. The data are publicly available in the form of
interactive maps and graphs.
About PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia: PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia (CHOP) is dedicated
to achieving optimal child health and well-being by informing
program and policy changes through interdisciplinary research.
Founded in 2008, PolicyLab is a Center of Emphasis within the CHOP
Research Institute, one of the largest pediatric research
institutes in the country. With more than 30 highly regarded
faculty and 60 passionate staff who bring expertise from myriad of
fields covering health, research and health policy, our work
focuses on improving public systems, improving health care delivery
and improving child health outcomes. For more information,
visit http://www.policylab.chop.edu.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Lauren Walens, Strategic Ops &
Comms Director
PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
walensl@email.chop.edu or (734) 904-2181
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SOURCE PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia