RAPID: Scenario Projections for Seasonal Influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and RSV Burden in the US (2023-2024)

To guide public health planning efforts for the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season, this study will use mathematical models to predict the individual and combined healthcare burden of COVID-19, influenza, and RSV in the United States. Since its emergence in 2019, COVID-19 has spread alongside influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) globally. While early pandemic interventions disrupted the seasonal transmission of influenza and RSV, the co-circulation of the three viruses strained healthcare resources in the United States during the 2022-2023 respiratory virus season. SARS-CoV-2 has yet to settle into a predictable seasonal cycle and the most recent RSV epidemic was significantly larger than pre-pandemic RSV seasonal waves. Public health and healthcare decision makers face considerable uncertainty in planning for future overlapping epidemics given that the timing and magnitude of seasonal virus epidemics are uncertain and that new medical countermeasures have recently become available for RSV that can significantly reduce disease severity for those at highest risk. The project will provide technical and translational training for two postdoctoral researchers and one Ph.D. student. The researchers will project the healthcare burden associated with COVID-19, influenza, and RSV in the United States throughout the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season under epidemiological scenarios that are defined in collaboration with officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Using a stochastic compartmental susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered (SEIR) modeling framework that was previously developed and validated for submitting projections to the CDC's COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub and Influenza Scenario Modeling Hub, the projections will integrate estimates of population-wide immunity from derived from prior infections, vaccinations, and monoclonal antibody therapy for all three viruses and consider several scenarios for the future evolution of the viruses and the efficacy and uptake of medical countermeasures. The project will produce four rounds of projections between September 2023 and February 2024, which will be disseminated through rapid reports, peer-reviewed publications, and discussions with the CDC, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and the CDC's Influenza and COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hubs. 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.