March 05, 2021
Bulletin interne de l'Institut Pasteur
Modeling the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 epidemic: the Institut Pasteur launches a new dedicated online space on pasteur.fr
When tackling infectious diseases, it is important to understand how infectious agents spread among the population to be able to evaluate the impact of the outbreaks they cause and anticipate their development and the efficacy of control measures. Mathematical modeling is a useful tool for describing these complex, multifactorial epidemic trends and interpreting often limited epidemiological data.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Institut Pasteur has been using these approaches to study the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Such analyses can be used to estimate the risks associated with infection, evaluate the impact of control measures and monitor the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, for example by estimating what proportion of the population has been infected and producing projections to anticipate hospital needs for COVID-19 patients in the short term.
More recently, mechanical models have been developed to monitor the progression of viral variants in France and characterize what looks set to be a race between these variants and the vaccine rollout.
The Institut Pasteur has set up a dedicated space for consulting research in this area carried out by the Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases Unit, led by Simon Cauchemez. The space contains data about the current dynamics of the pandemic and information about the team's research.