Daniel Chavez and Eli Laird (U): An ODE-Based Model for the Spread of COVID-19 at Southern Methodist University

In early 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak made its way into the United States and began to rapidly breach all existing protocols for dealing with an infectious disease spreading within communities both locally and at large. As a result all academic institutions within the United States disbanded their campus and school communities so as to slow the spread of the novel virus. We modified a standard Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered (SEIR) compartmental model to examine the intertwined behaviors of both residential and community populations within university and college campuses, with a focus on Dallas' Southern Methodist University. The modified model contains a new quarantined/isolation category and an equilibrium between the susceptible and exposed categories, with a novel exposure function linking the two. Exposure rates for relevant spaces where students frequently flow through were predicted and calculated from official SMU databases and floor plans. These predictions may be used to propose disease-prevention strategies specific for college campuses.