The next weekly meeting of the WG will be held on Thursday Aug 26 at 3 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
LINK
The zoom will be open and live-streamed, you will have to fill in your name and email address to attend:
https://iu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYqd-2srD8tGtCXDem4Cka08rBz5fDW0EQR
Please feel free to forward this invitation on to anyone you think would be interested.
THIS WEEK
The schedule for this week consists of two presentations:
(1) Harry Hochheiser, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Principal Investigator of the MIDAS coordinating center. Presenting a talk about the efforts of the Coordinating Center around data provisioning, data models, FAIR data, and some of the possibilities that we envision for infectious disease modeling data.
(2) Guido España, University of Notre Dame. Title: Modeling the impact of COVID-19 using agent-based models. Abstract: More than 122,000 COVID-19 associated deaths have been reported in Colombia and about 27,000 in the city of Bogotá by the first week of August, with vaccination coverage in the city at 30% of fully vaccinated people. As the incidence of cases currently decreases, questions remain about the potential impact of the delta variant already present in the city. We used an agent-based model calibrated to data on age-structured deaths and dominance of variants in Bogotá. We modelled scenarios of early and delayed introduction of the delta variant in the city along with changes in mobility and social contact, and vaccine strategies over the next months. Our model suggests that by mid-July, vaccination may have already prevented 17,800 (95% CrI: 16,000 - 19,000) deaths in Bogotá. The delta variant could become dominant and lead to a fourth wave later in the year, but its timing will depend on the date of introduction, social mixing patterns, and vaccination strategy. In all scenarios, higher social mixing is associated with a fourth wave of considerable magnitude. If an early delta introduction occurred (dominance by mid-July), a new wave may occur in August/September and in such case, age prioritization of vaccination is more important. However, if introduction occurred one or two months later (dominance by mid-August/September) the age-prioritization is less relevant in all scenarios we found that increasing the vaccination rate from the current average of 50,000/day to 100,000/day reduces the impact of a fourth wave due to the delta variant. In Bogotá, the delta variant could still lead to a fourth wave with a magnitude that depends on the level of social mixing and the timing of delta introduction. The impact of this wave can be reduced by maintaining moderate levels of social mixing and increasing vaccination rates to achieve high coverage. We found that, at this point, suspending the age prioritization to achieve higher coverage with first doses does not seem to have a major effect on deaths and ICU demand.
After the presentations we will have breakout rooms for each of the speakers where you may discuss technical questions.