Publications by authors named "A Vespignani"
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) punctuated the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic in multiple occasions. The stages subsequent to their identification have been particularly challenging due to the hurdles associated with a prompt assessment of transmissibility and immune evasion characteristics of the newly emerged VOC. Here, we retrospectively analyze the performance of a modeling strategy developed to evaluate, in real-time, the risks posed by the Alpha and Omicron VOC soon after their emergence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, internationally connected cities often experience large and early outbreaks, while rural regions follow after some delay. This hierarchical structure of disease spread is influenced primarily by the multiscale structure of human mobility. However, during the COVID-19 epidemic, public health responses typically did not take into consideration the explicit spatial structure of human mobility when designing nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAircraft wastewater surveillance has been proposed as a novel approach to monitor the global spread of pathogens. Here we develop a computational framework to provide actionable information for designing and estimating the effectiveness of global aircraft-based wastewater surveillance networks (WWSNs). We study respiratory diseases of varying transmission potentials and find that networks of 10 to 20 strategically placed wastewater sentinel sites can provide timely situational awareness and function effectively as an early warning system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Accurate forecasts improve public health responses to seasonal influenza, with 26 teams providing predictions for hospital admissions in 2021-22 and 2022-23.
- Six out of 23 models performed better than the baseline in 2021-22, while 12 out of 18 models did so in 2022-23, with the FluSight ensemble being highly ranked in both seasons.
- Despite its accuracy, the FluSight ensemble and other models struggled with longer forecast periods, especially during times of rapid change in influenza patterns.
Background: Human contact patterns are a key determinant driving the spread of respiratory infectious diseases. However, the relationship between contact patterns and seasonality as well as their possible association with the seasonality of respiratory diseases is yet to be clarified.
Methods: We investigated the association between temperature and human contact patterns using data collected through a cross-sectional diary-based contact survey in Shanghai, China, between December 24, 2017, and May 30, 2018.