RAPID: Collaborative: Transfer Learning Techniques for Better Response to COVID-19 in the US

该项目将使用其他国家以及纽约市、弗吉尼亚州和马里兰州的COVID-19可用数据集，建立分区和集合种群模型，以量化在那里发生的事件，以及在各个阶段可能实现的干预措施。这将有助于更早地控制未来的局势。 在这个项目中开发的流行病模型将导致计算流行病学的创新，并使减轻COVID-19对公共卫生，社会和经济的负面影响的方法成为可能。基于其他国家以及纽约市，弗吉尼亚州和马里兰州的COVID-19公开数据集，研究人员建议建立房室和集合种群模型来量化那里发生的事件，了解干预措施在各个阶段的影响，并制定控制流行病的最佳战略。基本模型将根据年龄、性别和传染状况将人口细分为不同类别;检查实施隔离的影响;然后考虑可能实施的其他策略，特别是降低接触率。 该项目将应用和扩展“迁移学习”的方法来解决这个问题。 该研究团队有很好的条件进行这项研究;他们在跟踪和建模传染病传播方面有着悠久的经验（例如，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will use available data sets for COVID-19 in other countries, and in NYC, Virginia, and Maryland to build compartmental and metapopulation models to quantify the events that transpired there, and what interventions at various stages may have achieved. This will permit gaining control of future situations earlier. The epidemic models developed during this project will lead to innovations in computational epidemiology and enable approaches that mitigate the negative effects of COVID-19 on public health, society, and the economy.Based on publicly available data sets for COVID-19 in other countries, and in NYC, Virginia, and Maryland, the researchers propose to build compartmental and metapopulation models to quantify the events that transpired there, understand the impacts of interventions at various stages, and develop optimal strategies for containing the pandemic. The basic model will subdivide the population into classes according to age, gender, and infectious status; examine the impact of the quarantine that was imposed; and then consider additional strategies that could have been imposed, in particular to reduce contact rates. The project will apply and extend the approach of "transfer learning" to this problem. The research team is well positioned to conduct this research; they have a long history of experience tracking and modeling infectious disease spread (e.g., Ebola, SARS) and are already participating in the CDC forecasting challenge for COVID-19.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.