Simulation model for COVID-19 prevention in nursing homes


Dec 22, 2021

Agent-based prevention model proves effective in real life

 

A detailed epidemiological model for the spread of the coronavirus, developed by scientists working at the CSH, enables optimal prevention strategies in nursing homes. Practical experience in nursing homes run by CARITAS Vienna show: the model works! 

 

 

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, residents of nursing homes have been particularly at risk. The spatial proximity to each other favors local transmission chains, and old age combined with pre-existing conditions can lead to severe courses of disease and an increased mortality rate. Political leaders and agencies responded with far-reaching measures, such as bans on visits or restricted community activities. By strictly isolating the homes, the virus was intended to be “locked out.”

 

“But at the same time, that meant ‘locking people in'”, says complexity researcher Jana Lasser from Graz Technological University who worked at the Hub until March 2021 and is now a member of our Associate Faculty. Through her grandparents, Jana experienced how tense the situation in nursing homes was, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. She also saw how the lack of social contacts endangers the physical and mental health of older people.

 

Agent-based simulation minimizes risk of infection

 

Almost two years after the onset of the pandemic, testing facilities and vaccinations now make it possible to control the spread of infections in nursing homes and at the same time relax isolation measures.

 

Especially at the beginning of a new wave of infections, the optimal combination and timing of individual measures is crucial. Here, a new simulation tool now facilitates the decision for or against individual measures.

 

Based on information from nursing homes run by CARITAS Vienna—an aid and social organization engaged in social work, nursing, care for people with disabilities, education, youth work and disaster relief—Jana and a team of scientists led by Peter Klimek have developed an agent-based simulation of residents and staff in a nursing home.

 

Agent-based means that individual entities—in this case people—have been identified and their behaviors modeled using several parameters from empirical observations. Analogous to the behavior of people in a real care home—including everyday encounters and interactions—connections are established between these units that map potential infection pathways. The interactions of many individuals make the dynamics of the system as a whole.

 

The simulation tool, which allows different scenarios in residential care homes to be studied and results relevant to everyday life to be obtained, is now published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

 

Balancing safety and quality of life

 

The scientists developed the model after a request of CARITAS Vienna. “The Caritas—one of the largest operators of nursing homes in Austria—provided us with insights into its pandemic management,” Jana recalls. Based on this information, the scientists developed a detailed model of a nursing home, which was calibrated by using Covid-19 outbreak data of the CARITAS homes.

 

Two questions were at the centre of the study:

 

What measures can be taken to optimally protect people in residential care homes from a SARS-CoV-2 infection?

And how can measures be chosen in such a way that the quality of life of the residents is maintained?

 

“The virus poses a particular threat to older adults,” says Thomas Wochele-Thoma, medical director of CARITAS Vienna. “Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, it was difficult to balance the safety of those affected on the one hand and their freedom on the other. As a consequence of the strict measures, older adults were faced with fears of isolation and experiences of loneliness during this period.”

 

The jointly developed test strategy was enormously helpful for the pandemic management in CARITAS homes, Wochele-Thoma says. “At a time when case numbers were rising in many residential care homes across Austria, infections were the exception in the homes where we piloted and implemented the testing strategy—at a time when the vaccination was not even available.”

 

Scenario “all vaccinated” or “all unvaccinated”

 

Specifically, the work plays out two scenarios: one without vaccinations and one with a high vaccination rate in the homes.

 

“It is likely that there will be infectious diseases again in the future for which vaccines are not available in the early days, as was the case with Covid-19,” Jana explains. “For this scenario, our study provides a decision-making basis for organizing preventive measures, such as a testing strategy, in nursing homes.”

 

The simulations were strongly oriented towards everyday work and were directly relevant to CARITAS’ decision-making processes during the pandemic from autumn 2020 onwards.

 

Vaccination rate decisive

 

On the one hand, the study shows that the time gap between sample collection and the test result as well as the accuracy of Covid-19 test results have a great influence on the incidence of infection in nursing homes. Thus, in the scenario of a completely unvaccinated home population, twice-weekly PCR tests of staff and, in the case of positive test results, strict quarantine measures are sufficient to prevent large outbreaks.

 

In turn, with a current vaccination rate of well over 80 per cent among residents, simulation results indicate that major coronavirus disease outbreaks are no longer to be expected, even if all other measures are relaxed or discontinued. However, the prerequisite is a vaccination protection against infection of at least 60 per cent. “More research is definitely needed here to better assess the effectiveness of vaccinations for older age groups,” Jana emphasizes. It is therefore recommended that the testing infrastructure in the houses is maintained, voluntary tests carried out on a regular basis and the virus genomes sequenced so that new variants of concern can be detected at an early stage.

 

CSH model the basis for testing strategy in Viennese nursing homes

 

Based on these simulations, the CARITAS developed its own testing strategy, starting in autumn 2020, and introduced it in its homes. “The fact that nursing homes have largely vanished from public attention shows what a great job our colleagues at the CARITAS have done,” says Peter, the scientific project manager of this publication. “This work also shows that only several measures in combination lead to the desired prevention success.”

 

Currently, measures in the homes are being adapted to the threat assessment against the background of the high vaccination rates in such a way that the quality of life of the people is restricted as little as possible.

 

“This work is a wonderful example of how helpful reliable simulation tools are, especially in critical phases. The simulation tool we developed facilitates evidence-based decisions. You can play with different variables and immediately see the effects of each measure. It is desirable to use the results of our and other simulation studies for pandemic-related decisions as early as possible,” conclude the project participants.

 

 

The work Agent-based simulations for protecting nursing homes with prevention and vaccination strategies by Jana Lasser, Johannes Zuber, Johannes Sorger, Elma Dervic, Katharina Ledebur, Simon David Lindner, Elisabeth Klager, Maria Kletečka-Pulker, Harald Willschke, Katrin Stangl, Sarah Stadtmann, Christian Haslinger, Peter Klimek, Thomas Wochele-Thoma appeared in the Dec. 22 issue of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

 

 

Text adapted from a joint press release of TU Graz and CSH.

 


Publication

A. Nerpel, A. Käsbohrer, C. Walzer, A. Desvars-Larrive

Data on SARS-CoV-2 events in animals: Mind the gap!

One Health 17 (2023) 100653 DOI: 10.1016/j.onehlt.2023.100653

Research News

Nov 23, 2023

Study Identifies Numerous Connections in Cybercrime Cases

Publication

G. Heiler, T. Pham, J. Korbel, J. Wachs, S. Thurner

A large-scale empirical investigation of specialization in criminal career

Scientific Reports 13 (2023) 17160

Unkategorisiert

Nov 28, 2023

Proposals for an Efficient and Effective Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence in Europe

Press

Forscher sagt: „2024 wird das System in den USA möglicherweise zusammenbrechen“


Die Presse, Nov 14, 2023

Press

Klima und Geschichte


Die Presse, Nov 4, 2023

Press

Daten mit Gewicht: Analysen von Lieferketten zeigen auch Steuerlücken


Die Presse, Oct 20, 2023

Research News

Nov 27, 2023

India's Rice Export Restrictions Echo in West Asia and Africa

Publication

M. Pangallo, A. Aleta, et al.

The unequal effects of the health-economy tradeoff during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nature Human Behaviour (2023) DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01747-x

Unkategorisiert

Nov 28, 2023

Proposals for an Efficient and Effective Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence in Europe

Research News

Nov 27, 2023

India's Rice Export Restrictions Echo in West Asia and Africa

Research News

Nov 23, 2023

Study Identifies Numerous Connections in Cybercrime Cases

Press

Nov 17, 2023

Invitation to media chat by Supply Chain Intelligence Institute Austria (ASCII)

Research News

Nov 15, 2023

Data Gap in SARS-CoV-2 Cases in Animals

News

Nov 14, 2023

FTX Collapse: New Method for Assessing the Solvency of Cryptocurrency Exchanges

People

Nov 10, 2023

Double Honors for CSH Researchers

News

Nov 13, 2023

New scientific methods for analyzing criminal careers

People

Nov 6, 2023

A letter to my dear friend Constantino

News

Oct 19, 2023

It's high time for alliances to ensure supply chain security

News

Oct 17, 2023

Experts discuss sustainable phosphorus use and global food security

Press

Forscher sagt: „2024 wird das System in den USA möglicherweise zusammenbrechen“


Die Presse, Nov 14, 2023

Press

Klima und Geschichte


Die Presse, Nov 4, 2023

Press

Daten mit Gewicht: Analysen von Lieferketten zeigen auch Steuerlücken


Die Presse, Oct 20, 2023

Press

Krypto-Forscher über DeFi: “Würde von De-facto-Centralized-Finance sprechen”


brutkasten, Oct 27, 2023

Press

Scientists say Western sanctions against China ‘toothless’ without better supply chain data


South China Morning Post, Oct 20, 2023

Press

Climate change has toppled some civilizations but not others. Why?


Grist, Oct 16, 2023

Press

scobel - Emergenz: Das verborgene Prinzip des Lebens


3sat, Oct 12, 2023

Press

Wenn die Kryptofalle zuschnappt


Kurier, Oct 17, 2023

Press

Chinas E-Autos kommen, und Europa darf nicht naiv sein


Der Standard, Oct 9, 2023

Press

GOP candidates' proposals to attack drug cartels is the wrong approach, Mexican researchers say


NBC News, Oct 6, 2023

Publication

M. Pangallo, A. Aleta, et al.

The unequal effects of the health-economy tradeoff during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nature Human Behaviour (2023) DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01747-x

Publication

A. Nerpel, A. Käsbohrer, C. Walzer, A. Desvars-Larrive

Data on SARS-CoV-2 events in animals: Mind the gap!

One Health 17 (2023) 100653 DOI: 10.1016/j.onehlt.2023.100653

Publication

G. Heiler, T. Pham, J. Korbel, J. Wachs, S. Thurner

A large-scale empirical investigation of specialization in criminal career

Scientific Reports 13 (2023) 17160

Publication

A. Pichler, C. Diem, et al.

Building an alliance to map global supply networks: New firm-level data can inform policy-making

Science 382(6668) (2023) 270-272.

Publication

R. Prieto-Curiel, G. M. Capedelli, A. Hope

Reducing cartel recruitment is the only way to lower violence in Mexico

Science 381(6664) (2023) 1312-1316

Publication

B. Méro, A. Borsos, et al.

A High-Resolution, Data-Driven Agent-Based Model of the Housing Market

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2023) 104738

Publication

S. Juhász, G. Pintér, et al.

Amenity complexity and urban locations of socio-economic mixing

EPJ Data Science 12 (2023) 34

Publication

R. Hanel, S. Thurner

Equivalence of information production and generalised entropies in complex processes

PLOS ONE 18(9) (2023) e0290695

Publication

K. Frenken, F. Neffke, A. van Dam

Capabilities, institutions and regional economic development: a proposed synthesis

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society (2023) rsad021

Publication

G. Orlandi, D. Hoyer, et al.

Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) collapse in China

PLoS ONE 18(8) (2023) e0289748

Publication

N. Kushwaha, E.D. Lee

Discovering the mesoscale for chains of conflict

PNAS Nexus 2(7) (2023) pgad228

Publication

H. Metzler, D. Garcia

Social Drivers and Algorithmic Mechanisms on Digital Media

Perspectives on Psychological Science (2023)