Compound Risks of Hurricane Evacuation Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States.

ABSTRACT: The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was extremely active and included, as of early November, six hurricanes that made landfall in the United States during the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Such an event would necessitate a large-scale evacuation, with implications for the trajectory of the pandemic. Here we model how a hypothetical hurricane evacuation from four counties in southeast Florida would affect COVID-19 case levels. We find that hurricane evacuation increases the total number of COVID-19 cases in both origin and destination locations; however, if transmission rates in destination counties can be kept from rising during evacuation, excess evacuation-induced case numbers can be minimized by directing evacuees to counties experiencing lower COVID-19 transmissio

SUBMITTER: Pei S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7704390 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature