Quantitatively assessing early detection strategies for mitigating COVID-19 and future pandemics.
Andrew Bo LiuDaniel LeeAmogh Prabhav JalihalWilliam P HanageMichael SpringerPublished in: medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences (2023)
Researchers and policymakers have proposed systems to detect novel pathogens early by monitoring samples from hospital patients, wastewater, and air travel, in order to mitigate future pandemics. How much benefit would such systems offer? We developed, empirically validated, and mathematically characterized a quantitative model that simulates disease spread and detection time for any given disease and detection system. We find that hospital monitoring could have detected COVID-19 in Wuhan 0.4 weeks earlier than it was actually discovered, at 2,300 cases compared to 3,400. Wastewater monitoring would not have accelerated COVID-19 detection in Wuhan, but provides benefit in smaller catchments and for asymptomatic or long-incubation diseases like polio or HIV/AIDS. Monitoring of air travel provides little benefit in most scenarios we evaluated. In sum, early detection systems can substantially mitigate some future pandemics, but would not have changed the course of COVID-19.
Keyphrases
- coronavirus disease
- sars cov
- hiv aids
- current status
- healthcare
- respiratory syndrome coronavirus
- loop mediated isothermal amplification
- end stage renal disease
- label free
- real time pcr
- wastewater treatment
- ejection fraction
- high resolution
- antiretroviral therapy
- emergency department
- climate change
- peritoneal dialysis
- hepatitis c virus
- mass spectrometry
- human immunodeficiency virus
- patient reported
- infectious diseases
- electronic health record
- gestational age