Across the country academic medical centers are bringing their public health and data analysis expertise to state government efforts to track COVID-19 and help determine the best pathways for re-opening schools and businesses.
For example, to better understand the prevalence and transmission patterns of COVID-19 across the Beaver State, Oregon Health & Science University, in collaboration with the State of Oregon and the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, will conduct a statewide study to track, test and precisely map the virus in real time.
The “Key to Oregon” research study, announced by Gov. Kate Brown, will enroll 100,000 randomly selected Oregonians to voluntarily provide essential data that can be used to inform decision making at the county, regional and state level. The study’s goal is to help get people back to school and work faster, while effectively managing the potential for future COVID-19 outbreaks.
Starting May 11, an OHSU research team will track the temperatures and other COVID-19 symptoms of all 100,000 study participants. The information gleaned from this study will be applied broadly across the state in real time.
A subset of up to 10,000 randomly selected study participants also will be provided home testing kits to provide better data about prevalence of asymptomatic infection, and prevent wider spread in the community and the state.
All test results will be reported to the Oregon Health Authority to assist with contact tracing and home isolation of those with positive tests. An initial investment of $6 million has been committed by the State of Oregon to help fund this study. OHSU and the governor are actively seeking additional funding through public and private partnership.
In other examples, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is partnering with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to create a data-driven decision support tool that will enable a balance between maximizing the results of our economy while minimizing public health risks. This tool will help better understand the current health and economic status, as well as the inherent risks and benefits to easing restrictions by sector and region.
Additionally, the Indiana State Department of Health and the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI are partnering to measure the spread of COVID-19 throughout Indiana. Regenstrief and Fairbanks researcher Nir Menachemi, Ph.D., is leading the project, which will test 20,000 Hoosiers across the state.
The University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute developed a decision-support tool for public health officials. Its researchers said that further modeling of the pandemic within the state will help to make clear the effectiveness of eventual broad mitigation efforts that test widely for infection, isolate those who are infected, and trace and isolate people who have come in contact with infected individuals. To accomplish that, extensive testing would need to be conducted statewide.
Of course, there can be conflict if research findings don’t match politicians’ visions for re-opening schedules. The Arizona Republic reported on May 5 that the Arizona Department of Health Services told a team of university experts working on COVID-19 modeling to "pause" its work, according to an e-mail from a department leader shows.
“The modeling team of about two dozen professors at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona was compiling the most robust public model in Arizona of COVID-19,” the Republic reported. “The email, from DHS bureau chief of public health statistics S. Robert Bailey, came on Monday evening, after Gov. Doug Ducey announced plans to begin easing social distancing in the coming days. The universities’ model had shown that reopening at the end of May was the only scenario that didn't dramatically increase cases.”
