Open AccessModeling for COVID-19 college reopening decisions: Cornell, a case study
Author(s) -
Peter I. Frazier,
J. Massey Cashore,
Ning Duan,
Shane G. Henderson,
Alyf Janmohamed,
Brian Liu,
David B. Shmoys,
Jiayue Wan,
Yujia Zhang
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2112532119
Subject(s) - pandemic , asymptomatic , epidemiology , psychological intervention , vaccination , covid-19 , social distance , medicine , population , value (mathematics) , psychology , family medicine , virology , environmental health , statistics , mathematics , pathology , nursing , infectious disease (medical specialty) , disease
Significance Decisions surrounding how to safely reopen universities directly impact 7% of the US population (students, staff) and indirectly impact tens of millions more (families, communities). After witnessing large COVID-19 outbreaks among students from August 2020 to the present, universities want to provide safety while minimizing social and financial costs, despite uncertainty about vaccine hesitancy, vaccine efficacy, more transmissible variants with the potential for immune escape, and community prevalence. When the Delta variant is dominant, we find substantial risk reduction in moving student populations from mostly (75%) to fully (100%) vaccinated, in testing vaccinated students once per week even when all students are vaccinated, and in more frequent testing targeted to the most social groups of students.