MTB Group Seminar Series: Models, data and politics: a long journey between expectation and reality

Abstract

Last year as COVID-19 broke through, almost every scientist that knew how to model, began to try to predict the incidence of cases, using different sets of parameters. But, were they informative, or just a (good) scientific exercise? Were they useful? Was the data available in Uruguay enough? 

Trying to answer these questions, a group of scientists from different fields gathered together, founding the GUIAD-COVID19 group (Interdisciplinary Uruguayan Data Analysis Group). We have produced eleven reports (in Spanish), put together the public data informed daily about the cases and deaths and produced some visualizations (available at https://guiad-covid.github.io/). Then, the government built an advisory group (GACH: Honorary Scientific Advisory Group) of scientists and physicians to help to cope in the best way we could with the pandemic.

During the seminar, I will explain two models that we have used: one of them to estimate the underreporting in Uruguay, and the other to explain the tipping point from containment to outbreak.

It has been a long journey since March 13th when COVID arrived in Uruguay, so I will also try to explain the feelings that I had during this year.

Link to the session: https://zoom.us/j/96644194775?pwd=YXIwaE9KSnpHclVmN2d6SlY5bzRCQT09