The impact of opening dedicated clinics on disease transmission during an influenza pandemic

COVSIM: A stochastic agent-based COVID-19 SIMulation model for North Carolina

We document the evolution and use of the stochastic agent-based COVID-19 simulation model (COVSIM) to study the impact of population behaviors and public health policy on disease spread within age, race/ethnicity, and urbanicity subpopulations in North Carolina. We detail the methodologies used to model the complexities of COVID-19, including multiple agent attributes (i.e., age, race/ethnicity, high-risk medical status), census tract-level interaction network, disease state network, agent behavior (i.e., masking, pharmaceutical intervention (PI) uptake, quarantine, mobility), and variants. We describe its uses outside of the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub (CSMH), which has focused on the interplay of nonpharmaceutical and pharmaceutical interventions, equitability of vaccine distribution, and supporting local county decision-makers in North Carolina. This work has led to multiple publications and meetings with a variety of local stakeholders. When COVSIM joined the CSMH in January 2022, we found it was a sustainable way to support new COVID-19 challenges and allowed the group to focus on broader scientific questions. The CSMH has informed adaptions to our modeling approach, including redesigning our high-performance computing implementation.

Analyses on ICU and non-ICU capacity of government hospitals during the COVID-19 outbreak via multi-objective linear programming: An evidence from Istanbul

The current infectious disease outbreak, a novel acute respiratory syndrome [SARS]-CoV-2, is one of the greatest public health concerns that the humanity has been struggling since the end of 2019. Although, dedicating the majority of hospital-based resources is an effective method to deal with the upsurge in the number of infected individuals, its drastic impact on routine healthcare services cannot be underestimated. In this study, the proposed multi-objective, multi-period linear programming model optimizes the distribution decision of infected patients and the evacuation rate of non-infected patients simultaneously. Moreover, the presented model determines the number of new COVID-19 intensive care units, which are established by using existing hospital-based resources. Three objectives are considered: (1) minimization of total distance travelled by infected patients, (2) minimization of the maximum evacuation rate of non-infected patients and (3) minimization of the infectious risk of healthcare professionals. A case study is performed for the European side of Istanbul, Turkey. The effect of the uncertain length of the stay of infected patients is demonstrated via sensitivity analyses.