COVID19 Modelling and Simulation in India
"All models are wrong, but some are useful "
"All models are wrong, but some are useful "
The world has been thrown into the most massive crisis in a lifetime due to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID19) Pandemic caused by the SARS-Cov2 virus. As most countries in the world have locked themselves down to reduce the contagion, the medical professionals are doing their best to cure the patients. In this moment of crisis, the role of the scientific community has become crucial in the quest to contain the pandemic.
Here I attempt to create a list of ongoing studies in Indian institutes and a bibliography of research related to Data analytics (finding insights about the pandemic from observations), Epidemiological modeling (Modeling and analysis of disease spread, to forecast the effects of various interventions) and Social simulation (Modeling the impacts of the pandemic and containment policies on the society), along with relevant bibliography containing research papers, pre-prints, and reports.
1. Analytics and forecasts:
This is related to identifying trends and patterns in data related to covid19 cases recorded so far, and predicting future cases with the help of mathematical models.
Projects:
References:
2. Epidemiological Models:
These are models to study the growth/spread rate of the infections, the peak, herd immunity etc. Most of these models are "compartmental", or "state-space", i.e. they describe the situation in terms of number of people in each compartment like susceptible, infected and recovered.
Projects:
References:
3. Agent-based modeling:
Unlike state-space epidemiology models, here we specifically consider individuals as "agents" and their interactions, and how these affect the spreading process
Projects:
References:
4. Parameter estimation and model calibration:
Building models is fine, but do their outputs resemble the reality? For that, the model parameters need to be chosen appropriately. That is the task of fitting (calibrating) the model with the observations.
Projects:
References:
5. Intervention simulations:
This is related to studying different policies related to interventions such as testing, lockdown, vaccination etc and their various impacts.
Projects:
References:
6. Socio-economic impact assessment:
An epidemic has other dimensions too, such as economic. Policies like lock-down hamper economic activities and cause tremendous distress to the working class.
Projects:
References:
7. Simulations of specific regions:
These are works where models are suitably adapted to specific cities using ward-level data such as population density, human development indicators, medical facilities, travel patterns etc.