BC COVID-19 Modelling Group

COVID-19 Research Area(s): Diagnostics, Genomics & Transmission Dynamics, Economics & Business, Epidemiology & Public Health, Social Impacts, Vaccines & Treatments

A group of 70+ people was convened by Dan Coombs (UBC) and Caroline Colijn (SFU), with support from the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS). This interdisciplinary group is focused on modelling the COVID-19 pandemic, with a special emphasis on British Columbia and Canada. The team at PIMS is supporting this interdisciplinary and multi-university collaboration with digital collaboration tools and workflows, logistics, and internal and public-facing communications.

The BC COVID-19 Modelling Group has a developing website located at https://bccovid-19group.ca. The Group is working collaboratively using a Slack Team. The Group is collaborating on data-driven research explorations and projects using a GitHub organization: https://github.com/bcCOVID-19group. This group, and others at UBC and elsewhere, are using a dedicated interactive computing platform to support COVID-19 research activites: https://covid19.syzygy.ca.  All of these resources were set up by PIMS to support this Group and others engaged in COVID-19-related research.

Professors Coombs and Colijn have connections to the BC CDC. Together, and with these connections, these researchers are defining projects designed to inform policymakers on interventions aimed at controlling the spread of the COVID-19 infection.

PIMS is also supporting other COVID-19 teams outside of British Columbia.