Early Stage Prediction of US County Vulnerability to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mihir Mehta; Juxihong Julaiti; Paul Griffin; Soundar Kumara

The continued spread of confirmed cases of COVID-19, absence of a vaccine, limited resources for testing and assisting people with confirmed cases have presented a great challenge for our public health and healthcare provider systems. To this point, nonpharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing are the only effective mitigation measures. The rapid spread of the disease means that government and health services have very little time to plan and design effective response policies such as resource and workforce planning. Accurately predicting the near future COVID-19 spread at sufficient granularity would provide these organization with better information and time to appropriately plan and respond.