RTI International’s North Carolina COVID-19 Modeling Media Statement

RTI International has worked collaboratively with the University of North Carolina and Duke University to enact various statewide models that simulate the spread in North Carolina of the virus that causes COVID-19. This work is in response to the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic and the impacts it may have on North Carolina’s healthcare resources.

RTI is using agent-based modeling to explore various COVID-19 scenarios in North Carolina. The RTI models include a synthetic North Carolina population based on census data with overlays of publicly available datasets, such as hospital locations and bed capacity.  In addition, the models include information about synthetic patient movement among hospitals, long-term care facilities and the community. The original models were developed in collaboration with North Carolina healthcare and public health partners.

The primary purpose of these COVID-19 models is to allow decision makers to evaluate scenarios, foresee challenges and consider possible response strategies.

The RTI modeling efforts are in no way predictive of how the COVID-19 pandemic will unfold in North Carolina. They rely on modeling assumptions and adjustable epidemiological parameters for which we do not have known values. In the modeling work, these assumptions and parameters are continuously adjusted to get insights about possible COVID-19 pandemic scenarios and their impact on North Carolina.