Citation
Howerton, Emily; Contamin, Lucie; Mullany, Luke C.; Qin, Michelle; Reich, Nicholas G.; Bents, Samantha; Borchering, Rebecca K.; Jung, Sung-mok; Loo, Sara L.; & Smith, Claire P., et al. (2023). Evaluation of the US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub for Informing Pandemic Response Under Uncertainty. Nature Communications, 14(1), 7260. PMCID: PMC10661184Abstract
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.URL
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42680-xReference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2023Journal Title
Nature CommunicationsAuthor(s)
Howerton, EmilyContamin, Lucie
Mullany, Luke C.
Qin, Michelle
Reich, Nicholas G.
Bents, Samantha
Borchering, Rebecca K.
Jung, Sung-mok
Loo, Sara L.
Smith, Claire P.
Levander, John
Kerr, Jessica
Espino, J.
van Panhuis, Willem G.
Hochheiser, Harry
Galanti, Marta
Yamana, Teresa
Pei, Sen
Shaman, Jeffrey
Rainwater-Lovett, Kaitlin
Kinsey, Matt
Tallaksen, Kate
Wilson, Shelby
Shin, Lauren
Lemaitre, Joseph C.
Kaminsky, Joshua
Hulse, Juan Dent
Lee, Elizabeth C.
McKee, Clifton D.
Hill, Alison
Karlen, Dean
Chinazzi, Matteo
Davis, Jessica T.
Mu, Kunpeng
Xiong, Xinyue
Pastore y Piontti, Ana
Vespignani, Alessandro
Rosenstrom, Erik T.
Ivy, Julie S.
Mayorga, Maria E.
Swann, Julie L.
España, Guido
Cavany, Sean
Moore, Sean
Perkins, Alex
Hladish, Thomas
Pillai, Alexander
Ben Toh, Kok
Longini, Ira
Chen, Shi
Paul, Rajib
Janies, Daniel
Thill, Jean-Claude
Bouchnita, Anass
Bi, Kaiming
Lachmann, Michael
Fox, Spencer J.
Meyers, Lauren Ancel
Srivastava, Ajitesh
Porebski, Przemyslaw
Venkatramanan, Srini
Adiga, Aniruddha
Lewis, Bryan
Klahn, Brian
Outten, Joseph
Hurt, Benjamin
Chen, Jiangzhuo
Mortveit, Henning
Wilson, Amanda
Marathe, Madhav
Hoops, Stefan
Bhattacharya, Parantapa
Machi, Dustin
Cadwell, Betsy L.
Healy, Jessica M.
Slayton, Rachel B.
Johansson, Michael A.
Biggerstaff, Matthew
Truelove, Shaun
Runge, Michael C.
Shea, Katriona
Viboud, Cécile
Lessler, Justin