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

We propose a novel Timed Intervention S, 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.textdaggerCopyright Notice This 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).Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.Funding StatementNo FundingAuthor DeclarationsI confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.YesThe details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:The paper is exempt since it only analyzed publicly available data from Worldometerss.info.All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.YesI understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).YesI have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.YesAll data is available in the Projections section of the Worldometer/USA website