Simulating COVID-19 classroom transmission on a university campus

We study the airborne transmission risk associated with holding in-person classes on university campuses for the original strain and a more contagious variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We adopt a model for airborne transmission risk in an enclosed room that considers room properties, mask efficiency, and initial infection probability of the occupants. Additionally, we study the effect of vaccination on the spread of the virus. The presented model has been evaluated in simulations using fall 2019 (prepandemic) and fall 2020 (hybrid instruction) course registration data of a large US university, allowing for assessing the difference in transmission risk between in-person and hybrid programs and the impact of occupancy reduction, mask-wearing, and vaccination. The simulations indicate that without vaccination, moving 90% of the classes online leads to a 17 to 18× reduction in new cases, and universal mask usage results in an ∼2.7 to [Formula: see text] reduction in new infections through classroom interactions. Furthermore, the results indicate that for the original variant and using vaccines with efficacy greater than 90%, at least 23% (64%) of students need to be vaccinated with (without) mask usage in order to operate the university at full occupancy while preventing an increase in cases due to classroom interactions. For the more contagious variant, even with universal mask usage, at least 93% of the students need to be vaccinated to ensure the same conditions. We show that the model is able to predict trends observed in weekly infection rates for fall 2021.