The COVID-19 Pandemic Evolution in Hawai‘i and New Jersey: A Lesson on Infection Transmissibility and the Role of Human Behavior

Abstract

In this chapter we analyze the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, with specific focus on the states of Hawai‘i and New Jersey. The two states represent extreme cases, with the archipelagos reachable mainly by flights thus a contained environment, while the garden state located between two metropolitan areas. Agent-based and compartmental models are discussed with focus on factors limiting the possibility of accurate predictions, such as the difficulty in fitting the parameters to the specific characteristics of the pandemic evolution. The main message is the importance of building comprehensive models, including representation of the effect of human behavior on transmissibility and the sociodemographic characteristic of the modeled population, collect reliable and accurate data, and the creation of teams including mathematician, social scientists, and public health and policy experts to build such models.