RAPID: Modeling of COVID-19 transmission in cruise ships and evaluating the impact of mitigation measures

This project focuses on modeling the spread of COVID-19 in cruise ships and evaluating the impact of interventions commonly used in community guidelines, such as masking and distancing. Many travel and hospitality services have been heavily disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the densely populated congregated settings contribute to virus spread across individuals from various geographic areas and subpopulations. The development and implementation of guidelines to control the spread of disease and ensure the safety of travelers and crew members, as well as the populations they interact with during and after completing their travels, has been an ongoing effort. The understanding of what combinations of interventions are most effective in preventing or slowing down the disease spread will facilitate data-driven recommendations for cruise ship travel and for similar close-quarters settings for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. In addition, this project will support the training of graduate students who are interested in careers in public health. The objectives of this project include: (i) Developing mathematical models to analyze the spread of COVID-19 on cruise ships, considering the unique interaction dynamics among passengers and crew. (ii) Evaluating the effectiveness of various interventions, individually or in combination, including ones not previously used, by testing a wide range of model scenarios. The results will provide insights and recommendations for public health policy and decision-makers and the modeling framework can inform other modeling activities that rely on similar data streams. This project was funded in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 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.