David Rubin, a pandemic modeling expert with the CHOP Policy Lab, is seeing reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the future of the Philadelphia area, writes David Murrell for Philadelphia magazine.

With a team of researchers, Rubin has been modeling the course of the pandemic nationwide for months by using a variety of data. These include case rates, social distancing, hospitalization, population density, and age.

But lately, the Philadelphia region has been stagnating.

“We’re at very, very high case incidence, very high rates of hospitalization, and they’re neither growing nor declining,” Rubin said.

However, recently, there have been some reasons to be optimistic. In Philadelphia, hospitalizations are finally falling, averaging 600 people over the past two weeks.

Additionally, the prioritized rollout of the vaccine is poised to provide relief among the most vulnerable populations.

With things improving modestly, Rubin said that reopenings at limited capacity seem safe.

There are also reasons for concern, though. Suburban cases remain high, with Rubin’s model predicting a slight uptick in cases over the following weeks. Also, the new and more contagious COVID-19 variant has already been found in the region.

Read more about pandemic modeling in Philadelphia magazine by clicking here.