RAPID: Modeling COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine and Nursing Homes

Nursing Homes (NHs) have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, with NH residents accounting for nearly a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths. This project will help answer key questions about NHs, which are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 coronavirus infections and may be key to slowing the pandemic, and COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines. NH residents may be at a higher risk for COVID-19 coronavirus infections due to their health status, frequent interactions, and close, community-like living quarters. Once infected, residents are also at risk of serious health outcomes as a result of age-related illnesses, advanced chronic conditions, and frailty. Moreover, previous work has shown how NHs are highly interconnected with other healthcare facilities in a region and how an infectious disease outbreak in one nursing home can quickly spread throughout a region. Thus, NHs could further fuel the overall pandemic. COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines are one potential intervention in NHs and this proposed project would help address important questions about COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines. There is a need to better delineate the vaccine characteristics (e.g., efficacy/effectiveness, duration of protection, cost) that vaccine developers should aim for and how best to use different types of vaccines should they reach the market. It will also be helpful to understand the impact of varying prioritization of different populations, coverage, and compliance. A broader impact of this project is a better understanding of how COVID-19 coronavirus spreads in NHs and the impact of vaccination and other interventions. This will help decision makers determine what prevention and control measures should be implemented in NHs and how to implement these measures.

This project will entail the development of computational models of selected nursing homes (NHs) and their residents and personnel (including health professionals and staff). The models would represent the layouts of the NH, the specific residents and personnel, their characteristics, and their interactions. Simulations will consider an infected person in the NH transmitting the virus to others through direct contact or potentially through aerosol transmission or surface contamination. Simulation experiments would consider introduction of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) into the nursing home in different ways. This work will explore the effects and value of introducing different types of COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines to the NHs. For example, varying the efficacy, duration of protection, and other characteristics of the vaccine. Additionally, the models could explore the effects of varying vaccination coverage and compliance among different nursing home residents and personnel (e.g., what would happen if different types of residents received the vaccine at different times, which residents and personnel should be prioritized if vaccines are limited). Simulation experiments could also explore the effects of layering on different selected policies and interventions (e.g., wearing face masks, testing, and different types of social distancing) with and without COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines. Developing and attaching a COVID-19 clinical outcomes and costing model to each of the residents and personnel then can help calculate the economic impact and value of different vaccines, policies, and interventions.

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.