Enhancing seasonal influenza projections: A mechanistic metapopulation model for long-term scenario planning.

In temperate regions, annual preparation by public health officials for seasonal influenza requires early-season long-term projections. These projections are different from short-term (e.g., 1-4 weeks ahead) forecasts that are typically updated weekly. Whereas short-term forecasts estimate what "will" likely happen in the near term, the goal of scenario projections is to guide long-term decision-making using "what if" scenarios. We developed a mechanistic metapopulation model and used it to provide long-term influenza projections to the Flu Scenario Modeling Hub. The scenarios differed in their assumptions about influenza vaccine effectiveness and prior immunity. The parameters of the model were inferred from early season hospitalization data and then simulated forward in time until June 3, 2023. We submitted two rounds of projections (mid-November and early December), with the second round being a repeat of the first with three more weeks of data (and consequently different model parameters). In this study, we describe the model, its calibration, and projections targets. The scenario projection outcomes for two rounds are compared with each other at state and national level reported daily hospitalizations. We show that although Rounds 2 and 3 were identical in definition, the addition of three weeks of data produced an improvement to model fits. These changes resulted in earlier projections for peak incidence, lower projections for peak magnitude and relatively small changes to cumulative projections. In both rounds, all four scenarios presented conceivable outcomes, with some scenarios agreeing well with observations. We discuss how to interpret this agreement, emphasizing that this does not imply that one scenario or another provides the ground truth. Our model's performance suggests that its underlying assumptions provided plausible bounds for what could happen during an influenza season following two seasons of low circulation. We suggest that such projections would provide actionable estimates for public health officials.

COVID-19: On the Disparity in Outcomes Between Military and Civilian Populations.

INTRODUCTION: The CoronaVirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic remains a formidable threat to populations around the world. The U.S. Military, in particular, represents a unique and distinguishable subset of the population, primarily due to the age and gender of active duty personnel. Current investigations have focused on health outcome forecasts for civilian populations, making them of limited value for military planning. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We have developed and applied an age-structured susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered, or dead compartmental model for both civilian and military populations, driven by estimates of the time-dependent reproduction number, R(t), which can be both fit to available data and also forecast future cases, intensive care unit (ICU) patients, and deaths. RESULTS: We show that the expected health outcomes for active duty military populations are substantially different than for civilian populations of the same size. Specifically, while the number of cases is not expected to differ dramatically, severity, both in terms of ICU burdens and deaths, is substantially lower. CONCLUSIONS: Our results confirm that the burden placed on military health centers will be substantially lower than that for equivalent-sized civilian populations. More practically, the tool we have developed to investigate this (https://q.predsci.com/covid19/) can be used by military health planners to estimate the resources needed in particular locations based on current estimates of the transmission profiles of COVID-19 within the surrounding civilian population in which the military installation is embedded. As this tool continues to be developed, it can be used to assess the likely impact of different intervention strategies, as well as vaccine policies; both for the current pandemic as well as future ones.

Comparing and Contrasting the Properties of the Inner Heliosphere for the Three Most Recent Solar Minima.

The previous three solar cycles have ended in progressively more quiescent conditions, suggesting a continual slide into an ever deeper minimum state. Although the Sun's magnetic field is undoubtedly responsible for this quiescence, it is not clear how changes in its structure and strength modulate the properties of the solar wind. In this study, we compare the statistical properties of the solar wind during the three most recent minima (08/1996, 12/2008, and 12/2019) and develop global MHD model solutions to help interpret these observations. We find that, counter-intuitively, the statistical properties of the solar wind for the most recent minimum lie midway between the 08/1996 and 12/2008 minima. For example, while the minimum speed dropped by 40 km s-1 between 08/1996 and 12/2008, they rose by 20 km s-1 around the 12/2019 minimum. From the model results, we infer that the 12/2008 and 12/2019 minima were structurally similar to one another, with the presence of corotating interaction regions driven by equatorial coronal holes, while the 08/1996 minimum represented a more "standard" tilted dipole configuration associated with those of earlier space age minima. Comparison of the statistical properties derived from the model results with data suggest several opportunities to improve model parameters, as well as to apply more sophisticated modeling approaches. Overall, however, the model results capture the essential features of the observations and, thus, allow us to infer the global structure of the inner heliosphere, of which the in-situ measurements provide only a glimpse.

Consistent pattern of epidemic slowing across many geographies led to longer, flatter initial waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To define appropriate planning scenarios for future pandemics of respiratory pathogens, it is important to understand the initial transmission dynamics of COVID-19 during 2020. Here, we fit an age-stratified compartmental model with a flexible underlying transmission term to daily COVID-19 death data from states in the contiguous U.S. and to national and sub-national data from around the world. The daily death data of the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic was qualitatively categorized into one of four main profile types: "spring single-peak", "summer single-peak", "spring/summer two-peak" and "broad with shoulder". We estimated a reproduction number R as a function of calendar time tc and as a function of time since the first death reported in that population (local pandemic time, tp). Contrary to the diversity of categories and range of magnitudes in death incidence profiles, the R(tp) profiles were much more homogeneous. We found that in both the contiguous U.S. and globally, the initial value of both R(tc) and R(tp) was substantial: at or above two. However, during the early months, pandemic time R(tp) decreased exponentially to a value that hovered around one. This decrease was accompanied by a reduction in the variance of R(tp). For calendar time R(tc), the decrease in magnitude was slower and non-exponential, with a smaller reduction in variance. Intriguingly, similar trends of exponential decrease and reduced variance were not observed in raw death data. Our findings suggest that the combination of specific government responses and spontaneous changes in behaviour ensured that transmissibility dropped, rather than remaining constant, during the initial phases of a pandemic. Future pandemic planning scenarios should include models that assume similar decreases in transmissibility, which lead to longer epidemics with lower peaks when compared with models based on constant transmissibility.

COVID-19 deaths: Which explanatory variables matter the most?

More than a year since the appearance of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), many questions about the disease COVID-19 have been answered; however, many more remain poorly understood. Although the situation continues to evolve, it is crucial to understand what factors may be driving transmission through different populations, both for potential future waves, as well as the implications for future pandemics. In this report, we compiled a database of more than 28 potentially explanatory variables for each of the 50 U.S. states through early May 2020. Using a combination of traditional statistical and modern machine learning approaches, we identified those variables that were the most statistically significant, and, those that were the most important. These variables were chosen to be fiduciaries of a range of possible drivers for COVID-19 deaths in the USA. We found that population-weighted population density (PWPD), some "stay at home" metrics, monthly temperature and precipitation, race/ethnicity, and chronic low-respiratory death rate, were all statistically significant. Of these, PWPD and mobility metrics dominated. This suggests that the biggest impact on COVID-19 deaths was, at least initially, a function of where you lived, and not what you did. However, clearly, increasing social distancing has the net effect of (at least temporarily) reducing the effective PWPD. Our results strongly support the idea that the loosening of "lock-down" orders should be tailored to the local PWPD. In contrast to these variables, while still statistically significant, race/ethnicity, health, and climate effects could only account for a few percent of the variability in deaths. Where associations were anticipated but were not found, we discuss how limitations in the parameters chosen may mask a contribution that might otherwise be present.

Accurate influenza forecasts using type-specific incidence data for small geographic units.

Influenza incidence forecasting is used to facilitate better health system planning and could potentially be used to allow at-risk individuals to modify their behavior during a severe seasonal influenza epidemic or a novel respiratory pandemic. For example, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) runs an annual competition to forecast influenza-like illness (ILI) at the regional and national levels in the US, based on a standard discretized incidence scale. Here, we use a suite of forecasting models to analyze type-specific incidence at the smaller spatial scale of clusters of nearby counties. We used data from point-of-care (POC) diagnostic machines over three seasons, in 10 clusters, capturing: 57 counties; 1,061,891 total specimens; and 173,909 specimens positive for Influenza A. Total specimens were closely correlated with comparable CDC ILI data. Mechanistic models were substantially more accurate when forecasting influenza A positive POC data than total specimen POC data, especially at longer lead times. Also, models that fit subpopulations of the cluster (individual counties) separately were better able to forecast clusters than were models that directly fit to aggregated cluster data. Public health authorities may wish to consider developing forecasting pipelines for type-specific POC data in addition to ILI data. Simple mechanistic models will likely improve forecast accuracy when applied at small spatial scales to pathogen-specific data before being scaled to larger geographical units and broader syndromic data. Highly local forecasts may enable new public health messaging to encourage at-risk individuals to temporarily reduce their social mixing during seasonal peaks and guide public health intervention policy during potentially severe novel influenza pandemics.

Forecasting national and regional influenza-like illness for the USA.

Health planners use forecasts of key metrics associated with influenza-like illness (ILI); near-term weekly incidence, week of season onset, week of peak, and intensity of peak. Here, we describe our participation in a weekly prospective ILI forecasting challenge for the United States for the 2016-17 season and subsequent evaluation of our performance. We implemented a metapopulation model framework with 32 model variants. Variants differed from each other in their assumptions about: the force-of-infection (FOI); use of uninformative priors; the use of discounted historical data for not-yet-observed time points; and the treatment of regions as either independent or coupled. Individual model variants were chosen subjectively as the basis for our weekly forecasts; however, a subset of coupled models were only available part way through the season. Most frequently, during the 2016-17 season, we chose; FOI variants with both school vacations and humidity terms; uninformative priors; the inclusion of discounted historical data for not-yet-observed time points; and coupled regions (when available). Our near-term weekly forecasts substantially over-estimated incidence early in the season when coupled models were not available. However, our forecast accuracy improved in absolute terms and relative to other teams once coupled solutions were available. In retrospective analysis, we found that the 2016-17 season was not typical: on average, coupled models performed better when fit without historically augmented data. Also, we tested a simple ensemble model for the 2016-17 season and found that it underperformed our subjective choice for all forecast targets. In this study, we were able to improve accuracy during a prospective forecasting exercise by coupling dynamics between regions. Although reduction of forecast subjectivity should be a long-term goal, some degree of human intervention is likely to improve forecast accuracy in the medium-term in parallel with the systematic consideration of more sophisticated ensemble approaches.

Collaborative efforts to forecast seasonal influenza in the United States, 2015-2016.

Since 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has hosted an annual influenza season forecasting challenge. The 2015-2016 challenge consisted of weekly probabilistic forecasts of multiple targets, including fourteen models submitted by eleven teams. Forecast skill was evaluated using a modified logarithmic score. We averaged submitted forecasts into a mean ensemble model and compared them against predictions based on historical trends. Forecast skill was highest for seasonal peak intensity and short-term forecasts, while forecast skill for timing of season onset and peak week was generally low. Higher forecast skill was associated with team participation in previous influenza forecasting challenges and utilization of ensemble forecasting techniques. The mean ensemble consistently performed well and outperformed historical trend predictions. CDC and contributing teams will continue to advance influenza forecasting and work to improve the accuracy and reliability of forecasts to facilitate increased incorporation into public health response efforts.

The State of the Solar Wind, Magnetosphere, and Ionosphere During the Maunder Minimum.

Both direct observations and reconstructions from various datasets, suggest that conditions were radically different during the Maunder Minimum (MM) than during the space era. Using an MHD model, we develop a set of feasible solutions to infer the properties of the solar wind during this interval. Additionally, we use these results to drive a global magnetospheric model. Finally, using the 2008/2009 solar minimum as an upper limit for MM conditions, we use results from the International Reference Ionosphere (ILI) model to speculate on the state of the ionosphere. The results describe interplanetary, magnetospheric, and ionospheric conditions that were substantially different than today. For example: (1) the solar wind density and magnetic field strength were an order of magnitude lower; (2) the Earth's magnetopause and shock standoff distances were a factor of two larger; and (3) the maximum electron density in the ionosphere was substantially lower.

SUN-TO-EARTH MHD SIMULATION OF THE 14 JULY 2000 "BASTILLE DAY" ERUPTION.

Solar eruptions are the main driver of space-weather disturbances at the Earth. Extreme events are of particular interest, not only because of the scientific challenges they pose, but also because of their possible societal consequences. Here we present a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation of the 14 July 2000 "Bastille Day" eruption, which produced a very strong geomagnetic storm. After constructing a "thermodynamic" MHD model of the corona and solar wind, we insert a magnetically stable flux rope along the polarity inversion line of the eruption's source region and initiate the eruption by boundary flows. More than 1033 ergs of magnetic energy are released in the eruption within a few minutes, driving a flare, an EUV wave, and a coronal mass ejection (CME) that travels in the outer corona at ≈1500 km s-1, close to the observed speed. We then propagate the CME to Earth, using a heliospheric MHD code. Our simulation thus provides the opportunity to test how well in situ observations of extreme events are matched if the eruption is initiated from a stable magnetic-equilibrium state. We find that the flux-rope center is very similar in character to the observed magnetic cloud, but arrives ≈8.5 hours later and ≈15° too far to the North, with field strengths that are too weak by a factor of ≈1.6. The front of the flux rope is highly distorted, exhibiting localized magnetic-field concentrations as it passes 1 AU. We discuss these properties with regard to the development of space-weather predictions based on MHD simulations of solar eruptions.

Solar Sources of Interplanetary Magnetic Clouds Leading to Helicity Prediction.

This study identifies the solar origins of magnetic clouds that are observed at 1 AU and predicts the helical handedness of these clouds from the solar surface magnetic fields. We started with the magnetic clouds listed by the Magnetic Field Investigation (MFI) team supporting NASA's Wind spacecraft in what is known as the MFI table and worked backward in time to identify solar events that produced these clouds. Our methods utilize magnetograms from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager instrument on the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft so that we could only analyze MFI entries after the beginning of 2011. This start date and the end date of the MFI table gave us 37 cases to study. Of these we were able to associate only eight surface events with clouds detected by Wind at 1 AU. We developed a simple algorithm for predicting the cloud helicity that gave the correct handedness in all eight cases. The algorithm is based on the conceptual model that an ejected flux tube has two magnetic origination points at the positions of the strongest radial magnetic field regions of opposite polarity near the places where the ejected arches end at the solar surface. We were unable to find events for the remaining 29 cases: lack of a halo or partial halo coronal mass ejection in an appropriate time window, lack of magnetic and/or filament activity in the proper part of the solar disk, or the event was too far from disk center. The occurrence of a flare was not a requirement for making the identification but in fact flares, often weak, did occur for seven of the eight cases.

Probabilistic Solar Wind Forecasting Using Large Ensembles of Near-Sun Conditions With a Simple One-Dimensional "Upwind" Scheme.

Long lead-time space-weather forecasting requires accurate prediction of the near-Earth solar wind. The current state of the art uses a coronal model to extrapolate the observed photospheric magnetic field to the upper corona, where it is related to solar wind speed through empirical relations. These near-Sun solar wind and magnetic field conditions provide the inner boundary condition to three-dimensional numerical magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models of the heliosphere out to 1 AU. This physics-based approach can capture dynamic processes within the solar wind, which affect the resulting conditions in near-Earth space. However, this deterministic approach lacks a quantification of forecast uncertainty. Here we describe a complementary method to exploit the near-Sun solar wind information produced by coronal models and provide a quantitative estimate of forecast uncertainty. By sampling the near-Sun solar wind speed at a range of latitudes about the sub-Earth point, we produce a large ensemble (N = 576) of time series at the base of the Sun-Earth line. Propagating these conditions to Earth by a three-dimensional MHD model would be computationally prohibitive; thus, a computationally efficient one-dimensional "upwind" scheme is used. The variance in the resulting near-Earth solar wind speed ensemble is shown to provide an accurate measure of the forecast uncertainty. Applying this technique over 1996-2016, the upwind ensemble is found to provide a more "actionable" forecast than a single deterministic forecast; potential economic value is increased for all operational scenarios, but particularly when false alarms are important (i.e., where the cost of taking mitigating action is relatively large).

Intra-Weekly Variations of Influenza-Like Illness in Military Populations.

In this report, we describe and analyze a periodic pattern in influenza-like illness within active military populations, derived from the Defense Medical Surveillance System data set. We find that there is a well-defined pattern with peak incidence on Monday, decaying to Friday, and remaining roughly constant over the weekend. Moreover, we find that the pattern systematically changes in response to public holidays. We quantitatively describe the effect of this modulation, and show how these results may be used to detrend military and, by extension, civilian data sets. As medical data streams become more timely, these results may be used to infer near-real-time daily estimates of influenza-like illness incidence, which may form the basis of a forecasting tool for imminent outbreaks.

Early Characterization of the Severity and Transmissibility of Pandemic Influenza Using Clinical Episode Data from Multiple Populations.

The potential rapid availability of large-scale clinical episode data during the next influenza pandemic suggests an opportunity for increasing the speed with which novel respiratory pathogens can be characterized. Key intervention decisions will be determined by both the transmissibility of the novel strain (measured by the basic reproductive number R0) and its individual-level severity. The 2009 pandemic illustrated that estimating individual-level severity, as described by the proportion pC of infections that result in clinical cases, can remain uncertain for a prolonged period of time. Here, we use 50 distinct US military populations during 2009 as a retrospective cohort to test the hypothesis that real-time encounter data combined with disease dynamic models can be used to bridge this uncertainty gap. Effectively, we estimated the total number of infections in multiple early-affected communities using the model and divided that number by the known number of clinical cases. Joint estimates of severity and transmissibility clustered within a relatively small region of parameter space, with 40 of the 50 populations bounded by: pC, 0.0133-0.150 and R0, 1.09-2.16. These fits were obtained despite widely varying incidence profiles: some with spring waves, some with fall waves and some with both. To illustrate the benefit of specific pairing of rapidly available data and infectious disease models, we simulated a future moderate pandemic strain with pC approximately ×10 that of 2009; the results demonstrating that even before the peak had passed in the first affected population, R0 and pC could be well estimated. This study provides a clear reference in this two-dimensional space against which future novel respiratory pathogens can be rapidly assessed and compared with previous pandemics.

The solar magnetic activity band interaction and instabilities that shape quasi-periodic variability.

Solar magnetism displays a host of variational timescales of which the enigmatic 11-year sunspot cycle is most prominent. Recent work has demonstrated that the sunspot cycle can be explained in terms of the intra- and extra-hemispheric interaction between the overlapping activity bands of the 22-year magnetic polarity cycle. Those activity bands appear to be driven by the rotation of the Sun's deep interior. Here we deduce that activity band interaction can qualitatively explain the 'Gnevyshev Gap'­a well-established feature of flare and sunspot occurrence. Strong quasi-annual variability in the number of flares, coronal mass ejections, the radiative and particulate environment of the heliosphere is also observed. We infer that this secondary variability is driven by surges of magnetism from the activity bands. Understanding the formation, interaction and instability of these activity bands will considerably improve forecast capability in space weather and solar activity over a range of timescales.

Probing the solar magnetic field with a Sun-grazing comet.

On 15 and 16 December 2011, Sun-grazing comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) passed deep within the solar corona, effectively probing a region that has never been visited by spacecraft. Imaged from multiple perspectives, extreme ultraviolet observations of Lovejoy's tail showed substantial changes in direction, intensity, magnitude, and persistence. To understand this unique signature, we combined a state-of-the-art magnetohydrodynamic model of the solar corona and a model for the motion of emitting cometary tail ions in an embedded plasma. The observed tail motions reveal the inhomogeneous magnetic field of the solar corona. We show how these motions constrain field and plasma properties along the trajectory, and how they can be used to meaningfully distinguish between two classes of magnetic field models.

Multiple estimates of transmissibility for the 2009 influenza pandemic based on influenza-like-illness data from small US military populations.

Rapidly characterizing the amplitude and variability in transmissibility of novel human influenza strains as they emerge is a key public health priority. However, comparison of early estimates of the basic reproduction number during the 2009 pandemic were challenging because of inconsistent data sources and methods. Here, we define and analyze influenza-like-illness (ILI) case data from 2009-2010 for the 50 largest spatially distinct US military installations (military population defined by zip code, MPZ). We used publicly available data from non-military sources to show that patterns of ILI incidence in many of these MPZs closely followed the pattern of their enclosing civilian population. After characterizing the broad patterns of incidence (e.g. single-peak, double-peak), we defined a parsimonious SIR-like model with two possible values for intrinsic transmissibility across three epochs. We fitted the parameters of this model to data from all 50 MPZs, finding them to be reasonably well clustered with a median (mean) value of 1.39 (1.57) and standard deviation of 0.41. An increasing temporal trend in transmissibility ([Formula: see text], p-value: 0.013) during the period of our study was robust to the removal of high transmissibility outliers and to the removal of the smaller 20 MPZs. Our results demonstrate the utility of rapidly available - and consistent - data from multiple populations.

Solar origins of solar wind properties during the cycle 23 solar minimum and rising phase of cycle 24.

The solar wind was originally envisioned using a simple dipolar corona/polar coronal hole sources picture, but modern observations and models, together with the recent unusual solar cycle minimum, have demonstrated the limitations of this picture. The solar surface fields in both polar and low-to-mid-latitude active region zones routinely produce coronal magnetic fields and related solar wind sources much more complex than a dipole. This makes low-to-mid latitude coronal holes and their associated streamer boundaries major contributors to what is observed in the ecliptic and affects the Earth. In this paper we use magnetogram-based coronal field models to describe the conditions that prevailed in the corona from the decline of cycle 23 into the rising phase of cycle 24. The results emphasize the need for adopting new views of what is 'typical' solar wind, even when the Sun is relatively inactive.