The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted an unprecedented global effort to understand and mitigate the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In this study, we present a comprehensive analysis of COVID-19 in Western New York (WNY), integrating individual patient-level genomic sequencing data with a spatially informed agent-based disease Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) computational model. The integration of genomic and spatial data enables a multi-faceted exploration of the factors influencing the transmission patterns of COVID-19, including genetic variations in the viral genomes, population density, and movement dynamics in New York State (NYS). Our genomic analyses provide insights into the genetic heterogeneity of SARS-CoV-2 within a single lineage, at region-specific resolutions, while our population analyses provide models for SARS-CoV-2 lineage transmission. Together, our findings shed light on localized dynamics of the pandemic, revealing potential cross-county transmission networks. This interdisciplinary approach, bridging genomics and spatial modeling, contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of COVID-19 dynamics. The results of this study have implications for future public health strategies, including guiding targeted interventions and resource allocations to control the spread of similar viruses.
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Modeling epidemic flow with fluid dynamics
In this paper, a new mathematical model based on partial differential equations is proposed to study the spatial spread of infectious diseases. The model incorporates fluid dynamics theory and represents the epidemic spread as a fluid motion generated through the interaction between the susceptible and infected hosts. At the macroscopic level, the spread of the infection is modeled as an inviscid flow described by the Euler equation. Nontrivial numerical methods from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are applied to investigate the model. In particular, a fifth-order weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) scheme is employed for the spatial discretization. As an application, this mathematical and computational framework is used in a simulation study for the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. The simulation results match the reported data for the cumulative cases with high accuracy and generate new insight into the complex spatial dynamics of COVID-19.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1951345
- PAR ID:
- 10343629
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering
- Volume:
- 19
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 1551-0018
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 8334 to 8360
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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