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Paper Information

Title

Evaluation of the US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub for informing pandemic response under uncertainty.

Abstract

Our ability to forecast epidemics far into the future is constrained by the many complexities of disease systems. Realistic longer-term projections may, however, be possible under well-defined scenarios that specify the future state of critical epidemic drivers. Since December 2020, the U.S. COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub (SMH) has convened multiple modeling teams to make months ahead projections of SARS-CoV-2 burden, totaling nearly 1.8 million national and state-level projections. Here, we find SMH performance varied widely as a function of both scenario validity and model calibration. We show scenarios remained close to reality for 22 weeks on average before the arrival of unanticipated SARS-CoV-2 variants invalidated key assumptions. An ensemble of participating models that preserved variation between models (using the linear opinion pool method) was consistently more reliable than any single model in periods of valid scenario assumptions, while projection interval coverage was near target levels. SMH projections were used to guide pandemic response, illustrating the value of collaborative hubs for longer-term scenario projections.

Journal

Nature communications

Citation

Howerton E, Contamin L, Mullany LC, Qin M, Reich NG, Bents S, Borchering RK, Jung SM, Loo SL, Smith CP, Levander J, Kerr J, Espino J, van Panhuis WG, Hochheiser H, Galanti M, Yamana T, Pei S, Shaman J, Rainwater-Lovett K, Kinsey M, Tallaksen K, Wilson S, Shin L, Lemaitre JC, Kaminsky J, Hulse JD, Lee EC, McKee CD, Hill A, Karlen D, Chinazzi M, Davis JT, Mu K, Xiong X, Pastore Y Piontti A, Vespignani A, Rosenstrom ET, Ivy JS, Mayorga ME, Swann JL, España G, Cavany S, Moore S, Perkins A, Hladish T, Pillai A, Ben Toh K, Longini I Jr., Chen S, Paul R, Janies D, Thill JC, Bouchnita A, Bi K, Lachmann M, Fox SJ, Meyers LA, Srivastava A, Porebski P, Venkatramanan S, Adiga A, Lewis B, Klahn B, Outten J, Hurt B, Chen J, Mortveit H, Wilson A, Marathe M, Hoops S, Bhattacharya P, Machi D, Cadwell BL, Healy JM, Slayton RB, Johansson MA, Biggerstaff M, Truelove S, Runge MC, Shea K, Viboud C, Lessler J. (2023). Evaluation of the US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub for informing pandemic response under uncertainty. Nature communications, 14(1)

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