### Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering

2021, Issue 1: 551-563. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2021030
Research article Special Issues

# Controlling the spread of COVID-19 on college campuses

• 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.

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

### Related Papers:

• 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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