Excess Risk of COVID-19 to University Populations Resulting from In-Person Sporting Events

  1. Stephanie S. Johnson
  2. Katelin C. Jackson
  3. Matthew S. Mietchen
  4. Samir Sbai
  5. Elissa J. Schwartz
  6. Eric T. Lofgren

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Abstract

Background: One of the consequences of COVID-19 has been the cancelation of collegiate sporting events. We explore the impact of sports on COVID-19 transmission on a college campus. Methods: Using a compartmental model representing the university, we model the impact of influxes of 10,000 visitors attending events and ancillary activities (dining out, visiting family, shopping, etc.) on 20,000 students. We vary the extent visitors interact with the campus, the number of infectious visitors, and the extent to which the campus has controlled COVID-19 absent events. We also conduct a global sensitivity analysis. Results: Events caused an increase in the number of cases ranging from a 25% increase when the campus already had an uncontrolled COVID-19 outbreak and visitors had a low prevalence of COVID-19 and mixed lightly with the campus community to an 822% increase where the campus had controlled their COVID-19 outbreak and visitors had both a high prevalence of COVID-19 and mixed heavily with the campus community. The model was insensitive to parameter uncertainty, save for the duration a symptomatic individual was infectious. Conclusion: Sporting events represent a threat to the health of the campus community. This is the case even in circumstances where COVID-19 seems controlled both on-campus and among the general population.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/ijerph18168260
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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.27.20202499: (What is this?)

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    Table 1: Rigor

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    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Each scenario was stochastically simulated for 1000 iterations using Gillespie’s Direct Method4 in Python 3.8 using the using the StochPy library5.
    Python
    suggested: (IPython, RRID:SCR_001658)

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    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

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    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.27.20202499v1 on medRxiv