Modeling exit strategies from the COVID-19 pandemics in Poland

18 04 2020

Researchers from the Centre for Systemic Risk Analysis have applied to the National Science Centre for funding the grant “Modeling exit strategies from the COVID-19 pandemics in Poland”.

The applicants are:Andrzej Nowak, Yehuda Band (Israel), Marek Trippenbach, Szymon Malinowski, Marek Kuś, Fabian Welc, Marek Konarzewski, Sebastian Szymański, Jacek Rogala, Marcin Napiórkowski, Joanna Dreszel, Andrzej Wróbel, Grzegorz Łach.

Currently available simulation models of on-going COVID-19 epidemics in Poland are short term and do not include exit strategies from lockdown that provide sustainable, albeit reduced, economic activity. However, according to predictions drawn from computational modeling (Ferguson et al. 2020) relaxation of the lockdown restrictions, in particular social distancing, in approximately 1 or 2 months will result in the series of epidemic relapses, continuing until the population gains group immunity. Taking into consideration that an effective vaccine or treatment will probably be unavailable in the near-term, there is an urgent need to develop mathematical models of long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic customized to Polish conditions. We understand that modeling pandemics is not a particularly original idea, and many groups of professionals and amateurs are undertaking such a task. Therefore, we propose a more comprehensive trans-disciplinary approach incorporating a broad range of factors going beyond a purely epidemiological methodology.