Global trajectory of coronavirus tracked with tool from Imperial

Imperial College London has projected the global trajectory of coronavirus with the latest version of its scenario analysis tool.

The tool was developed by the Imperial College COVID19 Response Team, in collaboration with Bio Nano. Version 3 of the tool covidsim.org is now live, having been first released in May 2020.

The tool is designed to make projections for the course of the epidemic. It allows the user to make these projections globally and gives information about the expected number of people requiring hospitalisation and critical care facilities.

Over 50,000 users have now accessed the tool since it was launched, helping policymakers around the world develop their response to the pandemic. The model is updated and re-calibrated weekly to reflect the cumulative Covid-19 deaths reported the previous week.

New features for the simulation tool include allowing the user to specify the impact of future non-pharmaceutical interventions by changing the time varying reproductive number. It also includes plots of the effective reproductive number, which is the average number of secondary infections generated by a primary infection in the absence of immunity.

Dr Oliver Watson, from the School of Public Health, said: "The new version of covidsim will greatly help countries consider different epidemic trajectories as we move into 2021.

"This now includes all countries, with emerging second waves and ongoing epidemics happening across all income levels showing the need for careful planning in response to COVID-19.

"Lastly, we present in covidsim how much increasing population immunity has impacted the level of transmission and thus how much of current epidemic trends are due to interventions and how much is due to the level of transmission that has already occurred."

Michael Klein of COVIDaction Data Challenge said: “Epidemiological models are needed to assess the spread of COVID-19.

"They are particularly essential for lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where reliable testing data is lacking, providing a tool for predicting contagion patterns to determine the best course of action for a country’s population.”

For more detailed information about the project, please visit the Imperial College London website.