“An interdisciplinary team from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, alongside global experts, are tracking and projecting the COVID-19 epidemic across 384 counties with active outbreaks as it spreads across the United States. Utilizing data from a variety of publicly available sources, the researchers built their model to observe how social distancing, population density, and daily temperatures affect the number and spread of COVID-19 infections over time across a county, accounting for population characteristics, such as age, insurance status and smoking prevalence. For social distancing, which the model identified as the most important factor in reducing transmission, the researchers used cell phone movement data. For the latest comments on our findings from the lead researchers, read this blog post, and to learn more about the methods behind this model, see this abstract. For more information on this project, click here…

“Doctors behind a COVID-modeling study used by the president’s coronavirus task force are now warning that virus hot spots are beginning to converge and jump from county to county as people increase their travel for work and summer vacation. According to doctors working on a study put together by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the virus is moving along major highways and interstates—such I-10 in California, I-85 in the south and I-95 on the East Coast—as states continue to reopen their economies. With an uptick of coronavirus cases taking place in states in the south and southwestern parts of the country, this new finding has raised fears that new outbreaks may soon move north to major metropolitan regions, reversing the progress already made in flattening the curve. “There’s a convergence of metro areas that’s now leading to these larger epicenters of transmission. Places that were already in trouble … are the ones that are slipping out of control,”  said Dr. David Rubin, the director of PolicyLab. “For example the southwest outbreak is moving right up the I-5. You can see the risk all the way up. We’re a week or two away from Sacramento and San Francisco.” The findings from PolicyLab are the latest warning sign to emerge as the majority of states have now moved into the second phase of their reopening plans, with restaurants, religious communities and some places of work open for business. Rubin’s fear, as culled from the data, is that as individuals begin to relax their own social distancing measures they have begun to travel more within their communities and to other surrounding states, thereby spreading the disease…” [“𝐀𝐬 𝐨𝐟 June 16, 2020, 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 #𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐃𝟏𝟗 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝟒 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝟏.”]