Epidemiological models are compartmental models that simulate the evolution of infectious disease outbreaks. The population is divided into compartments, e.g. Susceptible, Infected and Recovered (SIR), and the movements of subjects between compartments are defined by means of ordinary differential equations. The results of an epidemic simulation strictly depend on the model’s parameters; some of these parameters are biological and bound to the infectious disease, others are related to demographics and specific areas.
During a pandemic like COVID-19, health systems across the globe are overwhelmed. This can lead to high mortality both directly from the outbreak as well as indirect mortality from otherwise preventable and treatable conditions. Health systems need to draw a fine balance between the demands of responding directly to the pandemic, while simultaneously engaging in strategic planning and coordinated action to maintain essential health service delivery.
The lecture will discuss how the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute’s (QEERI) Energy Center uses its solar forecasting resources as a potential risk analysis tool to evaluate the viability of COVID-19 under different weather conditions and to forecast the probability of high contagion periods.
Speaker:
Dr. Veronica Bermudez, Senior Research Director, Energy Center, QEERI
The lecture will explain how drinking water and wastewater treatment in Qatar is designed to remove pathogens including viruses, and what we can learn from the global research related to water and COVID-19.
Speaker:
Dr. Jenny Lawler, Senior Research Director, Water Center, QEERI
The lecture will focus on the links between the recent improvement in air quality and the degree of social distancing policies adopted. It will consider how we can leverage that information in the fight against COVID-19 and for future air quality management efforts.
Speaker:
Mohammed Ayoub, Senior Research Director, Environment & Sustainability Center, QEERI
Researchers are frequently faced with the daunting task of sifting through hundreds if not thousands of publications to gather supporting evidence for their questions or hypotheses or just to have a good understanding of a specific area. A case in point is trying to answer research questions about COVID-19 using the 51k thousands articles of the CORD-19 dataset.
