Epidemiological and public health considerations in the modelling of the COVID-19 pandemic
In order to generate spaces for community encounters and to serve as a source of scientific information in the face of the current health crisis by COVID-19, the Center for advanced chronic diseases (ACCDIS) performs every Friday from 17:00 hours your cycle of online seminars, which are streamed by their Facebook page (@accdis).
In this opportunity, the seminar was led by Eduardo A. Undurraga, Civil Engineer of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, PhD Social Policies and Millennium Core Associate Researcher for the Study of the Course of Life and Vulnerability (MLIV) and the Millennium Core for Collaborative Research in Antimicrobial Resistance (MICROB-R), who is engaged in their line of research to integrate quantitative methods to understand local factors, affecting the health and well-being of the population, particularly related to infectious diseases.
During the seminar the engineer reported, that according to the report generated by the Center for Science and Systems Engineering, until Friday, May 8, estimated nearly 4 million COVID-19 cases worldwide and approximately 270.000 confirmed deaths, "we are facing a rather severe epidemic," said Eduardo Undurraga.
In this line, the doctor refers to the increase in new diseases and number of epidemics that have developed in recent decades in the world, pointing out three reasons that literature has highlighted as the main factors: globalization and air traffic, habit disruption and climate change and urbanization i.e., "denser cities, with increased pressure in the environment and diseases that go from animal cycles to humans", commented the scientist, who also pointed out that the places most at risk, are precisely those where virus surveillance systems are precarious, where there is less effective responsiveness, few lab and less research.
On the other hand, reported that this virus is not new, in 2005 a study called, Severe acute respiratory syndrome, coronavirus-like virus in Chinese horseshoe bats and then in 2007 another research called Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus as an emerging and re-emerging infection agent warned of the consumption of bats "main suspects of COVID-19" indicated the researcher.
With regard to simulation models, the engineer explained "the SIR is the basis of the mechanisms that have emerged in this epidemic" by calling the population susceptible, Infected, recovered and/or removable.
But, what are mathematical models for in the pandemic?
In this line the engineer explained that, thanks to the simulations carried out the government authorities of each country had the opportunity to implement health measures before the peck will arrive or it was impossible to control, Exemplifying: in January China reported 60 positive cases of COVID-19, but according to Estimates by Imperial Collage London, there really were 1700 cases. In the same month, based on positive cases in China and international flights, the risk of contagion to the world was estimated by highlighting the possibility of a pandemic. March 2, another group of experts reported that the virus could not only be spread by symptomatic people, but there's probably transmission with asymptomatic people, among other models.
To finish, Eduardo Undurraga explained that in Chile several institutions currently work on mathematical models, "from my area we find ourselves calculating the effective number of reproduction of the virus, also the relationship between the number of positive tests and the number of cases, as well as in a mechanism that simulates the different scenarios (SIR) in hospitals and outside of them", explained Eduardo.