The Futures of the Pandemic in the USA: A Timed Intervention Model

We propose a novel Timed InterventionS, P, E, I, Q, R, D model for projecting the possible futures of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA. The proposed model introduces a series of timed interventions that can account for the influence of real time changes in government policy and social norms. We consider three separate types of interventions:Protective interventions. Where population moves from susceptible to protected corresponding to mask mandates, stay-at-home orders and/or social distancing.Release interventions. Where population moves from protected to susceptible corresponding to social distancing mandates and practices being lifted by policy or pandemic fatigue.Vaccination interventions. Where population moves from susceptible, protected, and exposed to recovered (meaning immune) corresponding to the mass immunization of the U.S. Population.By treating the pandemic with timed interventions, we are able to model the pandemic extremely effectively, as well as directly predicting of the course of the pandemic under differing sets of intervention schedules. We show that without prompt effective protective/vaccination interventions the pandemic will extend all the way into 2022 and result in many millions of deaths in the U.S.†Copyright NoticeThis manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).