JOIN WITH US FOR LIVE WEBINAR- "The Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered (SIR) Model for Covid-19"

The Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered (SIR) Model for Covid-19 When: Tuesday Jul 27, 2021 - 01:00 PM EST Duration: 60 Minutes .

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While the NPIs have obviously failed to contain Covid-19 due primarily to noncompliance among the general public (which is linked in turn to general lack of understanding of the underlying science), they did end the 2019-2020 flu season about a month early and will probably result in no substantial 2020-2021 flu season whatsoever. This is because there is a vaccine for seasonal flu, many if not most people avail themselves of its protection every year, and the 2019-2020 seasonal flu could not survive the combined effects of the NPIs and the vaccine. The NPIs were however unable to end Covid-19, for which there is no vaccine, by themselves.
Areas Covered in the Session:
The physical and economic dangers associated with Covid-19 are obvious. The disease has a relatively high (on the order of 2%, lower for younger people and higher for older ones) lethality, is extremely contagious, and is often asymptomatic. People who have it might not know they can give it to others, and even survivors can suffer lifelong damage.
The good news is however that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) can reduce the disease's menace to allow businesses to reopen safely. They also work against seasonal flu and have already, in combination with the annual vaccine for that disease, ended the 2019-2020 flu season about a month early. We can predict reasonably that there will be no 2020-2021 flu season for the same reason, and the takeaway is that the NPIs are effective.
NPIs impede both Covid-19 and seasonal flu by suppressing their basic reproduction numbers (NPIs)
Vaccination (like herd immunity) puts a substantial fraction of the population into the Recovered (and immune) category, but without the risks associated with getting the disease itself. If a portion of the population is vaccinated against seasonal flu, R0 does not need to be reduced to less than 1 to have the same effect.
There is not yet a vaccine against Covid-19 so NPIs are currently our only way to suppress it. These include, in descending order of preference,