inspiration...
We identified 3 problems related to lack of awareness and lack of information on pandemic development and the effectiveness of prevention measures.
For the citizen: The citizen easily sees the immediate impacts of preventive measures (confinement, partial unemployment, lack of school for children, isolation, etc.) but he does not see the effects of these on the fight against coronavirus in the longer term or what would have happened if these measures had not been taken. Indeed, simple, pedagogical information (showing the mechanisms at work),readable,nottransmitted by political power is not simply accessible. The result is: -Compliance with imperfect preventive measures, either excessive (right of withdrawal, lack of care for other pathologies not to clutter hospitals) or insufficient (non-compliance with containment, not being tested when presenting symptoms, returning from travel, ...) -Potential decrease in citizens' confidence in their leaders (-10% confidence in how to manage the crisis between mid-March and mid-April by the political authorities in France), which can fuel a sometimes latent distrust of political elites. -Citizens could see (with sufficient information) that solutions to the crisis depend oncompliance with their implementation and that there may beuncertainties about their impact.s.
For local decision-makers: While national and international decision-makers have scientific advice and complex modeling tools, local decision-makers have only partial and limited access to these resources. However, they are valuable players in the fight against the virus through the specific measures they can adopt. They can act usefully by their ability to relay these measures and information. They can also mediate between citizens and political leaders and health decision-makers. It results from this lacking access to simple information: -excessive local measures (e.g. some covered market closure orders),which fuel suspicion about the relevance of what all prevention measures -Inadequate action: some elected officials or leaders sometimes call too quickly for a deconfinement.
For researchers: Epidemiologists and virologists have all the necessary instruments to understand this health crisis and to recommend appropriate measures. On the other hand, downstream, some researchers want to assess the social, economic and psychological costs of the crisis. These researchers are not epidemiology specialists and cannot spend much time developing scenarios for the health consequences of the epidemic. A simple - but scientifically based- tool to develop scenarios for the deployment of the epidemic would allow researchers to delve deeper into the consequences specific to their discipline (economics, psychology, sociology, etc. ).
What it does ?
The solution we are providing is obviously a part of, neutral, forward-looking knowledge (on which scenarios can be built) that would be necessary. However, it is an essential brick. We have developed a model that spatially simulates the deployment of the pandemic. This model (SIR type) takes into account the following effects. Three categories of the population are simulated (young, adult, elderly or at risk). People can be : clean, infected, or cured). The infected are part of 4 trajectories (evolution of the disease)..
This model incorporates prevention scenarios that can be activated on specific dates in the simulations:
- School closures(decrease in children's encounters with each other and with adults)
- Quarantine: Individuals in an area cannot leave an area (except one% of "runaways")
- Confinement: individuals are confined to "families" of 3 to 6 people and limit their other encounters strongly (-90%))
- Isolation of an age group: this age group sees a decrease inthe number of "meetings" (-990%)
- Isolation of the "sick": people with symptoms have a reduced number of encounters (-990%))
- Introducing 'barrier gestures': infectious potential diminished
How we built it
a. Before the weekend:
- Mobilisation of the family (our team)
- Identification of the name of the project: tapid19...
- we defined, how the model works, its various "key" parameters
- General briefing: determinating the outputs of the models, the scenarios to be implemented, the general planning
b. Saturday:
- Python coding of the core of the model and user interface (java script)
- testing, scenario calibration c. Sunday:
- Attempting to connect the "user" interface and the core of the model (partially failed)
- Development of a literary ptich and a presentation video.
Challenges we ran into
make a tool with the competencies of the family...
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our model works... a beautiful user-interface can be built in a short time.
What we learned
we can do it...
What's next for Tapid19
The project is actually technically almost complete: it remains to calibrate it more for the different parameters on the one hand, and to optimize the user interface on the other. On the other hand, the dissemination of Tapid19 only takes its meaning within the dissemination of a community of "knowledge", validated, but open (i.e. not contrary to facts, but taking into account different hypotheses), easily usable (for citizens, professors, local decision-makers, or opinion leaders, researchers (outside the disciplinary field of epidemiology). In this regard, the project (beyond the Tapid19 tool) requires a communication strategy, a community of citizens supported by a scientific council and a strong institution (the European Parliament?) to make this knowledge available. In this respect, therefore, the project is not successful. This project would require to be carried out with citizen governance supported by an institution (European Parliament?). The Tapie family with its Tapid19 project as probably so many others would be ready to embark on this path.
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