RAPID: Variant Emergence and Scenario Design for the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub

The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub collects and aggregates projections from multiple modeling teams of US public health outcomes (cases, hospitalizations, and deaths) over 6 months at the state and national level. The goal of long-term projections is to compare outbreak trajectories under different scenarios, interventions, or assumptions, as opposed to offering a specific prediction of what will happen. This project will improve those projections by adding information that includes potential future viral variants and by building a network to gather, organize and synthesize information on the emerging characteristics of any actual new variant of concern. The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub reports to the White House COVID-19 data team, the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization. the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and other organizations. A public webpage makes the work accessible to public health experts, state-level stakeholders, the media, and the general public. Our work will inform planning and response measures for future variant surges in the coming months, both nationally and globally, and may be adapted for outbreaks of other diseases. It will also train a postdoctoral researcher and a graduate student in scientific expertise and communications skills.The COVID-19 Scenario Hub has completed 12 rounds of scenario projections for the USA. A major source of uncertainty that affects scenario design and projections is new genetic variants. First, this project will improve information gain and uncertainty reduction pertaining by engaging with scientists working on immunology, epidemiology, and viral evolution to elicit information on plausible emergence timing and the range of possible characteristics of potential new variants, via expert elicitation methods. Second, for response purposes, the project will commence to build a network to gather, organize and synthesize information on the emerging characteristics of any actual new variant of concern that will improve the emergency process the Hub used for the Omicron variant, streamlining and enhancing information gain. Both information streams will be used to improve scenario development and to provide the best possible data to participating modeling teams. This project was funded in collaboration with the CDC to support rapid-response research projects to further advance federal infectious disease modeling capabilities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.