A number of Queens' alumni are involved in research efforts to model and predict the effect of lockdown and its easing on both public health and our economy. Dr Rajiv Chowdhury, global health epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge and a former Gates Scholar at Queens', is lead author on a paper published last week that suggests an alternating cycle of 50 days of strict lockdown followed by 30 days of easing could be an effective strategy for reducing the number of COVID-19-related deaths and admissions to intensive care units.
Dr Chowdhury says:
Our models predict that dynamic cycles of 50-day suppression followed by a 30-day relaxation are effective at lowering the number of deaths significantly for all countries throughout the 18-month period. This intermittent combination of strict social distancing, and a relatively relaxed period, with efficient testing, case isolation, contact tracing and shielding the vulnerable, may allow populations and their national economies to ‘breathe’ at intervals – a potential that might make this solution more sustainable, especially in resource-poor regions.”
The researchers say that the specific durations of these interventions would need to be defined by specific countries according to their needs and local facilities. The key is to identify a pattern that allows countries to protect the health of the population not only from COVID-19 but also from economic hardship and mental health issues. More on this study can be found on the University of Cambridge website.
Another alumnus, Dr Fabian Stephany is involved in a project that aims to assess the economic risk of COVID-19 on an industry-by-industry basis in real time, in order to provide policy makers with vital, up-to-date information in this incredibly volatile situation.
This CoRisk-Index, as it is called, will help to complement more traditional measures of economic activity, as it nowcasts how business perceive their COVID-19-related risk exposure. Preliminary findings suggest that industries, such as Manufacturing and Retail, report strong exposure to supply and demand shocks early on, while services sectors, such as Finance, only recently started to report COVID-19-related risks. Moreover, negative sentiment of reports mentioning COVID-19 preempt global stock market developments. The CoRisk-Index will be updated constantly, throughout the crisis, and it allows researchers and the general public to get a comprehensive view on how industries assess economic risks related to COVID-19.
More information on this project can be found on the Oxford Internet Institute blog and in the Washington Post. Dr Stephany is a researcher in Computational Social Science at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, having previously taken an MPhil in Sociology at Queens'. Photograph credit the Oxford Internet Insitute.
Front page photo: Police stopping traffic in lockdown, credit Tim Dennell via Creative Commons.