Modelling the impact of presemester testing on COVID-19 outbreaks in university campuses.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Universities are exploring strategies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 prior to reopening their campuses. National guidelines do not currently recommend testing students prior to campus arrival. However, the impact of presemester testing has not been studied.

Design

Dynamic SARS-CoV-2 transmission models are used to explore the effects of three presemester testing interventions.

Interventions

Testing of students 0, 1 and 2 times prior to campus arrival.

Primary outcomes

Number of active infections and time until isolation bed capacity is reached.

Setting

We set on-campus and off-campus populations to 7500 and 17 500 students, respectively. We assumed 2% prevalence of active cases at the semester start, and that one-third of infected students

SUBMITTER: Rennert L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7745453 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature