COVID-19 spread via classes

Ph.D. candidate William Ruth and Professor Richard Lockhart are studying the potential spread of COVID-19 through the network of SFU students who share classes.  When classes are moved from meeting in person to meeting online, transmission is prevented. But what if we want to move only some classes online? Will making only the largest classes run remotely be enough to lower the risk of rampant spread through the student body? William is using anonymized data showing which students are connected via attending a class together. He is building a network on which he then simulates the spread of disease. Statistics derived from graph theory are then used to try to give guidance as to which classes, based on their size, should be moved online.