Modeling Social Distancing and Quantifying Epidemic Disease Exposure in a Built Environment

As we transition away from pandemic-induced isolation and social distancing, there is a need to estimate the risk of exposure in built environments. We propose a novel metric to quantify social distancing and the potential risk of exposure to airborne diseases in an indoor setting, which scales with distance and the number of people present. The risk of exposure metric is designed to incorporate the dynamics of particle movement in an enclosed set of rooms for people at different immunity levels, susceptibility due to age, background infection rates, intrinsic individual risk factors (e.g., comorbidities), mask-wearing levels, the half-life of the virus and ventilation rate in the environment. The model parameters have been selected for COVID-19, although the modeling framework applies to other airborne diseases. The performance of the metric is tested using simulations of a real physical environment, combining models for walking, path length dynamics, and air-conditioning replacement action. We have also created a visualization tool to help identify high-risk areas in the built environment. The resulting software framework is being used to help with planning movement and scheduling in a clinical environment ahead of reopening of the facility, for deciding the maximum time within an environment that is safe for a given number of people, for air replacement settings on air-conditioning and heating systems, and for mask-wearing policies. The framework can also be used for identifying locations where foot traffic might create high-risk zones and for planning timetabled transitions of groups of people between activities in different spaces. Moreover, when coupled with individual-level location tracking (via radio-frequency tagging, for example), the exposure risk metric can be used in real-time to estimate the risk of exposure to the coronavirus or other airborne illnesses, and intervene through air-conditioning action modification, changes in timetabling of group activities, mask-wearing policies, or restricting the number of individuals entering a given room/space. All software are provided online under an open-source license.