COVID-19 Air Traffic Visualization: A New Tool Helps Analyze Commercial Air Travel Involving Infected Passengers

Hanson, Russell Mouton Christopher A.; Grissom, Adam R.; Godges, John P.; Corporation, Rand

The COVID-19 Air Traffic Visualization (CAT-V) tool combines COVID-19 case data from Johns Hopkins University and International Air Transport Association air travel data to examine COVID-19 virus transmission as a result of commercial air travel. CAT-V can be used to forecast COVID-19 patterns of transmission using air travel data and reported infection rates. The authors use case rates and number of air passengers originating from each country and passenger destinations to identify the eight countries with the highest risk of importing COVID-19 from China on January 24, 2020. The tool can also be used to examine the risks of individual air travel routes. Future versions of the CAT-V tool will include province and state-level data.