One of the major challenges associated with reopening business and events safely in the age of Covid has been risk assessment. How risky or safe is it really to attend an event in Chicago versus Orlando? How do vaccination and mask mandates reduce the transmission of the virus at large events?
Over the past few months, epidemic modeling software company Epistemix has been assisting the events industry — both on the B2B and live entertainment sides — in evaluating the potential results of various decisions during the planning process and in determining appropriate safety protocols for in-person events.
“When we created Epistemix, we built the company up around the predictive analytic software that we developed within the Graduate School of Public Health, which enables us to simulate epidemics and test scenarios to mitigate them,” says John Cordier, Epistemix CEO and co-founder.
The company, which was founded by a group of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and the National Institute of Health, has over 10 years of experience modeling infectious diseases and has worked with government agencies as well as hospitals and school districts.
Last winter, Epistemix was introduced to Freeman and started working with the Exhibitions Conferences Alliance to help in-person meetings and events happen safely. “We began to model and simulate the impact of large B2B or B2C events on the trajectory of the pandemic for different cities,” explains Cordier.
“For example, we were looking at events that were happening in Florida months in advance, and we were able to predict the impact on the number of cases and even the number of people that would show with positive or negative tests within 98% accuracy. Testing, limiting capacity, social distancing, wearing masks, and getting GBAC certified were measures early on in the epidemic that could enable events to happen safely.”
Since then, Epistemix has been helping organizers across conferences, expos, etc. set protocols to help ensure that their events take place as safely as possible. Cordier explains that when evaluating the risk profile of any given event, Epistemix looks at the background immunity of the location, which includes previous infections, hospitalizations, deaths and previous vaccination coverage. “We're able to have a really good snapshot of what's going on in that area,” says Cordier.
They are then able to make projections based on the immunity of a given place — for example, what happens if the event participants, including attendees, exhibitors, and staff, have a different level of vaccination coverage than the background community?
“Freeman has conducted a survey across multiple industries to determine the actual vaccination coverage per industry,” says Cordier. “We're able to factor that in — if there's an event that's going to have 85% vaccination coverage of attendees, or let's say that there's a mandatory proof of vaccination to attend the event, or there's different social distancing, different cleaning, etc. for a specific venue, we're able to factor all of that into the models that we're building.”
With the baseline in place, the software runs different scenarios for the event and can determine the statistical risk of, for example, somebody showing up at the event and getting infected. Epistemix can also determine the net benefits of any given safety protocol or combination of protocols.
“For a 40,000-person event in Las Vegas, we actually showed that with masks, there are 200 or so cases that might be prevented for an event of this size, or if you have a vaccination requirement, it reduces the risk of infection by eight times for that specific event based on the specific demographic,” explains Cordier.
This, in turn, helps event organizers identify the protocols that need to be in place to gather a certain number of people together safely — whether it’s 1000 attendees, 10,000 attendees, or more.
“Show organizers are using this information to address the needs of attendees, exhibitors, and their boards during the decision-making process, so that they have data that supports their decisions on what protocols are going to be put in place,” says Cordier. “And if there's any event that’s not going to have protocols, they're able to make that decision based on supporting data.”
Epistemix is currently running through around 60 different scenarios of how the epidemic might change and how the various scenarios would affect the way events can be held — and whether they should be held at all.
When it comes to these models, Cordier notes an important distinction between simulation and prediction: “Simulation is best used when you're looking at the choices that people have to make, because the choices that leaders make — whether they're a show organizer, a local public health official, an elected official, etc. — will lead to different future outcomes.
“At Epistemix, we’re not predicting exactly what we think is going to happen. We use simulation to look at the different possible scenarios of what the future could look like, to enable people to make choices that create better outcomes for everyone involved.”
The good news, especially for B2B events, is that the demographics of people who attend these types of events also tend to be vaccinated.
“B2B events have higher vaccination coverage, on average, than pretty much every city in the United States. On the B2B side, we're not seeing as much variation in the level of vaccination coverage for attendees showing up at these events,” shares Cordier. “On the B2C side, it changes by sector. The individuals that are showing up for those events are able to do so based off of their own choices and own risk profile.” Travel to and attendance at B2B events, on the other hand, is often subject to company approval.
Beyond events that are taking place in the next few weeks and months, Epistemix is also helping organizers determine what protocols might be needed into 2022 and later, and what the de-escalation of protocols might look like.
Even after the immediate threat of Covid-19 has passed, many people will remain more conscious of health & safety at large gatherings, and a service like Epistemix’s will remain valuable. “At the end of the day, it ends up providing assurance to event participants,” says Cordier. “I think this type of modeling is a responsible thing to do for any event because you're able to better assess the risk from a health perspective, which is such an important part of a healthy and thriving society.”