Infectious Disease Dynamics
Beginning in 2014, our team has worked on problems related to exploring non-canonical epidemic dynamics, including dynamics of transmission associated with environmental routes (e.g., as in cholera), identifiability problems (e.g, as in Ebola virus disease), and the link between behavior and transmission. Since January 2020, we have initiated a large-scale, collaborative effort to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. In doing so we have worked on core principles of spread, characterizing how viral and serological testing can be used as mitigation both in concept and in practice (in part via a large-scale saliva testing initiative at GT), and developed a risk assessment dashboard for communicating transmission risk to the public. Some projects we are currently working on include:
- Indirectly transmitted infectious disease dynamics
- Modeling the spread of shigella
- COVID-19
- Assessing the link between awareness, behavior, and transmission
- Leveraging testing as a form of mitigation
- Shield immunity principles and applications
- Real time risk assessment associated with large events
Our Tools
Covid-19 Risk Assessment Tool
To provide real-time, geolocalized risk information, we developed an interactive online dashboard that estimates the risk that at least one individual with SARS-CoV-2 is present in gatherings of different sizes in the United States. The website combines documented case reports at the county level with ascertainment bias information obtained via population-wide serological surveys to estimate real-time circulating, per-capita infection rates. Click here to view features of the dashboard in the press.
State of Covid-19 in Georgia
Dr. Stephen Beckett created an interactive dashboard to assess the state of Covid-19 in the state of Georgia. The dashboard uses data from The Covid Tracking Project.
Shield Immunity Dashboard
In our 2020 Nature Medicine paper, we led efforts to develop an epidemiological intervention model that leverages serological tests to identify and deploy recovered individuals who have developed protective antibodies to Covid-19. The objective of this intervention is to develop sufficient ‘shield immunity’ at the population scale to reduce epidemic intensity. Shield immunity works by increasing interactions with recovered individuals relative to individuals of unknown or susceptible status. This dashboard serves as an interactive tool to explore the effects of using sheild immunity as an intervention to control the spread of Covid-19.