Controlling the spread of COVID-19 on college campuses

Molly Borowiak; Fayfay Ning; Justin Pei; Sarah Zhao; Hwai-Ray Tung; Rick Durrett; Molly Borowiak; Fayfay Ning; Justin Pei; Sarah Zhao; Hwai-Ray Tung; Rick Durrett

doi:10.3934/mbe.2021030

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering

2021, Volume 18, Issue 1: 551-563. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2021030

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Research article Special Issues

Controlling the spread of COVID-19 on college campuses

Department of Mathematics, Duke University, P.O. Box 90320, Durham, NC 27708-0320, USA

Received: 06 September 2020 Accepted: 07 December 2020 Published: 14 December 2020

This research was done during the DOMath program at Duke University from May 18 to July 10, 2020. At the time, Duke and other universities across the country were wrestling with the question of how to safely welcome students back to campus in the Fall. Because of this, our project focused on using mathematical models to evaluate strategies to suppress the spread of the virus on campus, specifically in dorms and in classrooms. For dorms, we show that giving students single rooms rather than double rooms can substantially reduce virus spread. For classrooms, we show that moving classes with size above some cutoff online can make the basic reproduction number $ R_0 < 1 $, preventing a wide spread epidemic. The cutoff will depend on the contagiousness of the disease in classrooms.
- SIR epidemic,
- household model,
- basic reproduction number,
- critical value,
- Perron-Frobenius theorem
Citation: Molly Borowiak, Fayfay Ning, Justin Pei, Sarah Zhao, Hwai-Ray Tung, Rick Durrett. Controlling the spread of COVID-19 on college campuses[J]. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2021, 18(1): 551-563. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2021030

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Abstract

This research was done during the DOMath program at Duke University from May 18 to July 10, 2020. At the time, Duke and other universities across the country were wrestling with the question of how to safely welcome students back to campus in the Fall. Because of this, our project focused on using mathematical models to evaluate strategies to suppress the spread of the virus on campus, specifically in dorms and in classrooms. For dorms, we show that giving students single rooms rather than double rooms can substantially reduce virus spread. For classrooms, we show that moving classes with size above some cutoff online can make the basic reproduction number $ R_0 < 1 $, preventing a wide spread epidemic. The cutoff will depend on the contagiousness of the disease in classrooms.

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