Predicting the trajectory of Covid19 in NYC

The main qualitative outcome from our model is that testing capacity is, at best, an imperfect substitute for social distancing. Assuming daily testing capacity of 100,000 tests, below is a prediction of the daily deaths in NYC until late September under different social distancing norms. No relaxation corresponds to keeping the norms during the NY-Pause period, full relaxation corresponds to going back to the norms in the pre-NY-Pause period. All new social distancing norms come into effect on June 1. Going back to pre-NY-Pause norms is out of the question and comes with catastrophic outcomes. Even slight modifications on these norms would not be acceptable. However, it appears that we can somewhat relax the social distancing norms imposed during NY-pause and get sensible health outcomes.

Covid19 simulation model

We are a group of operations researchers from Columbia, Cornell, UNC and USC. We built a simulation model to predict the evolution of Covid19 in NYC under different scenarios for testing capacity and social distancing norms. We will use this blog to give updates, observations and predictions based on our model. We are also planning to use our model to predict the evolution of the pandemic in the Research Triangle region in NC. We hope that we can use our model to give some insight as the country experiments with different options to reopen. A full paper that describes our model and preliminary findings is available here.