May 20, 2020

expert reaction to a study modelling a rolling 50/30 day cycle of lockdown and relaxation

A study, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, has modelled a rolling lockdown cycle consisting of 50 days of lockdown followed by 30 days of relaxation.

Dr Ed Hill, Research Fellow in Mathematical Epidemiology, University of Warwick, said:

“The outcomes from this study are seemingly based on an individual run of the model for each country and strategy considered. This requires a note of caution as an individual run means that several underlying factor​s were only tested at one fixed value. There is inherently variability in the values that contribute to the transmission dynamics in the model, which would give a range of possible outcomes rather than a single prediction. Unfortunately, these uncertainties are not reflected in the paper’s analysis. Including these uncertainties and presenting the range of possible outcomes when the underlying factors of the model are varied is needed to fully assess the estimated performance of the considered control strategies.

“A capability offered by modelling is in providing an estimated range of predicted possibilities given the evidence currently available. Consequently, in response to disease outbreaks, models of infectious disease transmission are a tool that can contribute to efforts attempting to estimate the possible impact of control measures. It’s important that uncertainty in model forecasts is conveyed as, without it, decision makers will be missing meaningful information.”

‘Dynamic interventions to control COVID-19 pandemic: a multivariate prediction modelling study comparing 16 worldwide countries’ by Chowdhury et al was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology on Wednesday 20 May.

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.