With New Jersey reopening in phases, a mathematical model built by a Montclair State University professor forecasts how social distancing, testing and tracing can help policymakers understand how various approaches may work to curb the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pandemic is certainly not over,\u201d says Professor Eric Forgoston, chairperson of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, echoing public health officials and the World Health Organization, which recently warned \u201cthe worst is yet to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
The models show what could happen given different scenarios as New Jersey eases restrictions.\u00a0 The study was co-authored by Forgoston and Michael Thorne, research collaborator and computational biologist at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you rip the Band-Aid off or successively open throughout the summer, if you\u2019re not monitoring, then the disease will just grow again and you\u2019ll get that major second wave peak,\u201d Forgoston told New York City\u2019s WNYC-FM<\/a>, in one of the interviews he and other Montclair State faculty have given as part of the national conversation on COVID-19 and the public health crisis.<\/p>\n In explaining his mathematical models to nj.com<\/a>, Forgoston said, \u201cA better way to do it is to have the appropriate amount of testing and contact tracing in place. The idea is, as soon as a hotspot develops, because you\u2019re doing testing and contact tracing, you\u2019re able to see within days what you have, and you\u2019re able to shut down a small piece of the region or state so it\u2019s not an entire lockdown of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n The models were developed to understand the transmission of COVID-19 throughout New Jersey as well as the effect of lockdown measures and the removal or easing of different lockdown measures.<\/p>\n \u201cThe social contact matrices are divided into work, school, home, and other settings and show the average number of contacts between age groups in each of these settings. By developing a COVID-19 model that includes age and social structure, we are able to assess the impact of specific social distancing\/lockdown measures that have been implemented to contain the epidemic in New Jersey,\u201d according to the study.<\/p>\n New Jersey was among the states hardest hit by the coronavirus and among the last to lift stay-at-home orders. \u201cThose measures protected susceptible individuals from becoming sick. But the virus is still out there in the world. It hasn’t gone anywhere,\u201d Forgoston says. \u201cUnfortunately not everybody is wearing a mask and with more mixing going on and more large gatherings, the number of infections will increase.\u201d<\/p>\n Story by Staff Writer Marilyn Joyce Lehren<\/a><\/p>\n You May Also Like:<\/p>\n