Modelling work that informed UK Government’s initial response to COVID-19 Published in Royal Society Special Theme Issue

Mathematical modelling studies that shaped the public health response to the COVID-19 in the first half of 2020, including the first national lock-down, is published today [31st May 2021] in the journal of the Royal Society. The Special Theme issue is compiled and guest edited by SPI-M scientists including JUNIPER members Drs Ellen Brooks Pollock and Leon Danon at the University of Bristol and Dr. Lorenzo Pellis at the University of Manchester.

15 out of the 20 papers contained in this special issue detail work from JUNIPER members that was presented to the government advisory group SPI-M (Scientific Pandemic Influenza group on Modelling) between January and July 2020. The papers include work on early predictions of the first wave and estimates of the impact of various measures such as social distancing and the closure of schools.

The Special Theme Issue details mathematical modelling work carried out in response to specific asks by the government to the ever changing situation at the start of the pandemic. The papers detail the knowns and unknowns at the time, and provide an insight into the challenges in conducting real-time modelling work to support decision makers.

Dr Ellen Brooks Pollock, Guest Editor and Senior Lecturer in Infectious Disease Modelling, a member of the government’s SPI-M modelling group, and a member of the JUNIPER consortium, said: “COVID-19 is one of the biggest challenges the world has faced in recent times. This collection of work from a large number of SPI-M scientists working behind the scenes tells the science as it was at the time policy decisions were being made. It illustrates where the science was certain but also where there were uncertainties and trade-offs. There is not always a “right” decision”.

The 15 papers within this special issue co-authored by JUNIPER members, present critical evidence that informed the following government decisions:

• Stay-at-home measures in March 2020
• Early estimates of the reproduction number and doubling time
• Reopening of schools
• The introduction of support bubbles
• Contact tracing

 Dr Leon Danon, Guest Editor, member of SPI-M, SAGE-sub-group on social care, JUNIPER consortium and Associate Professor in Infectious Disease Modelling and Data Analytics at Bristol,  added: “During the first wave of the coronavirus emergency, the pandemic escalated very quickly, accurate independent mathematical and statistical modelling was key in advising the government on a number of critical issues to help them make informed decisions that underpinned some of the unprecedented restrictive measures implemented to stop the virus spread.
“The speed with which the scientific evidence around SARS-CoV-2 has changed and shifted as rapidly as the virus has spread and traditional publishing models have simply failed to keep up. Calls for the science to be published that informed decisions on highly disruptive control interventions come from all sectors of society, and especially in the last few days. This issue does exactly that: it collects a large body of work that informed policy and puts them in one place. The aim of the issue was to document the work that has been useful in this pandemic. The next pandemic is undoubtedly going to present us with different challenges, but perhaps some of the work captured here will remain relevant.”

Dr Jonathan Read from the University of Lancaster, member of JUNIPER consortium and an author in the Special Issue: “This early work, possibly the first transmission model of the pandemic, had two important findings. Firstly, our study estimated the likely full scale of the epidemic in Wuhan in January 2020. Secondly, by estimating the basic reproduction number of the virus, it provided crucial information on the potential to cause a pandemic and how hard it may be to control.
“This work showed that important information, at a time when such information was desperately needed to inform emergency and public health policy, could be gleaned from early hospital case data using a relatively simple epidemic model.”

Dr. Paul Birrell Senior statistician at Public Health England, member of JUNIPER consortium and author in the Special Issue: “Our paper is an account of how the official model of Public Health England, developed as a tool for pandemic preparedness, was swiftly rolled-out and adapted in real time to tackle emerging pandemic challenges. Over the course of the first pandemic wave, this model was used for timely estimation of CoVID-19 transmission and short-term forecasting of infections and deaths.
"Like many of the papers in the current volume, we are able to identify policy decisions directly influenced by this work, along with lessons to be learned ahead of the next pandemic.”

Royal Society Special Theme issue

The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Special Theme issue entitled ‘Modelling that shaped the early COVID-19 pandemic response in the UK’, compiled and edited by guest editors Ellen Brooks-Pollock and Leon Danon at the University of Bristol, Thibaut Jombart at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Lorenzo Pellis at the University of Manchester, is published today [31 May 2021]. Full details of the papers are available.