Mathematics at IISER Pune is happy to announce an online public talk on:

Mathematical Aspects of Modelling the COVID-19 Pandemic

by Prof. M. Vidyasagar (FRS, SERB National Science Chair and Distinguished Professor, IIT Hyderabad)

Date: November 20, 2020

Time: 4:00 - 5:00 pm

Venue: Live on YouTube

About: Prof. Vidyasagar is the chairperson of the "COVID-19 India National Supermodel" Committee, commissioned by the Government of India. The talk is about the mathematics behind the modelling of the pandemic and will be accessible to a general science audience including students. It will be live web cast on IISER Pune channel on YouTube and will be open to all.

Abstract: Modelling the spread of epidemics using ordinary differential equations (ODEs) began roughly a hundred years ago.  Over the years the approach has been used to design strategies for testing and vaccination against a variety of communicable diseases.  The COVID-19 pandemic that is sweeping the world is different from previous pandemics in that there are large numbers of "asymptomatic" patients who are nevertheless capable of infecting others.  In this talk I will begin by reviewing the traditional pandemic model known as SIR (Susceptible, Infected, Removed), and show how this model can be analyzed to predict the maximum number of infected patients, and the minimum number of persons who need to be vaccinated (herd immunity).  Then I will move to the SAIR model, where A stands for Asymptomatic.  I will show the special challenges that arise in this case, in particular, the difficulties in estimating the parameters of the model.  I will conclude the talk by presenting the new SUIR model, where U stands for undetected, and show that it is easier to fit this model to actual data, for the purposes of predicting the future course of the pandemic.  I will briefly discuss the work of the "COVID-19 India National Supermodel" Committee.