Tool aims to predict next COVID-19 outbreak

RAND Corp. recently developed an analytical tool that can be used to predict the regional risks of importing cases of COVID-19.

The tool can be used by policymakers to mitigate the threat to public health.

The COVID-19 Air Traffic Visualization tool uses International Air Transport Association travel data and Johns Hopkins University infection case data to estimate the number of infected passengers who travel from one place to another over time.

“Our tool uses the official COVID-19 caseload figures that are reported by individual countries. For this reason, the tool itself cannot correct for inaccurate or misleading case reporting,” Christopher Mouton, RAND aerospace engineer and project team leader, said. “However, by comparing the two sets of data embedded in the tool, we were able to estimate the likely actual COVID-19 caseload in China in January.”

RAND is continuing to develop the tool so it can predict the disease’s spread over longer periods. RAND researchers are developing updates that will allow the ability to visualize routes from and to specific airports and to examine province- or state-level data.

The tool may be made public in the future.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense and the U.S. Air Force sponsored the research.