Colorado State University alumnus Dylan George, leader of a national disease forecasting center in the federal government, will visit the Fort Collins campus on Oct. 19 to explain new approaches to respond to disease outbreaks.
George is the director of operations for the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA), a new center at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The group focuses on using big data and analytical models to improve response to infectious diseases. The new center is akin to a National Weather Service for infectious disease outbreaks in the United States.
“From the very beginning of CFA, we’ve supported outbreak responses across the U.S., including polio, COVID-19 and monkeypox, to successfully forecast the impact of these diseases within our communities,” George said. “We believe that the right data, at the right time, in the right hands can be transformative in our ability to prevent infections and save lives across the nation. Our goal at CFA is to obtain quality, real-time data that we can rapidly analyze and share with leaders at the local, state and federal levels so they can make informed decisions when responding to disease threats.”
George said CFA partnered with Kaiser Permanente Southern California and UC Berkeley to produce the first U.S. estimates of Omicron severity compared to the Delta variant. From there, the team notified federal leaders, state and local public health partners and the public that an impending increase in cases and hospitalizations would be severe enough to disrupt the infrastructure, which allowed leaders several weeks of notice to determine next steps.
