Formation | 2020 |
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Founded at | Imperial College London, Faculty of Medicine |
Headquarters | London, England |
Services | Reports relating to the COVID-19 pandemic to inform governments and public health agencies around the world |
Membership | 50 scientists |
Leader | Professor Neil Ferguson |
Affiliations | MRC GIDA, Jameel Institute |
The Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team is a group of experts from Imperial College London studying the COVID-19 pandemic and informing the government of the United Kingdom, and governments and public health agencies around the world. [1] [2] [3] The team comprises scientists from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, the Jameel Institute, the Imperial College Business School and the Department of Mathematics. [4] The Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team is led by Professor Neil Ferguson, Director of the Jameel Institute and MRC GIDA. [5] [6]
On 16 March 2020 the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team produced a research forecast of various scenarios for spread of the disease in the United Kingdom and the United States. Without any mitigation their forecast showed local health care capabilities vastly overwhelmed by the epidemic wave. Periodic cycles of quarantine followed by softer social distancing were recommended, with quarantines in effect two-thirds of the time. [7] On 30 March, a study on 11 European countries was published. [8] It provided estimates of the situation as of 28 March (observed and modelised with CovidSim), and projections for 31 March given current expectations, no action, and the difference. It also provided a list of government policies and their respective absolute dates. [8] As of 2 May 2021, the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team has produced 43 reports. [9]
Population infected by country | ||||||
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ICCRT's model projection for 28 March [8] | WHO lab-confirmed 29 March | |||||
Country | Population[ citation needed ] | Infected (95% range) | Infected (mean %) | Cases (est.) | Cases | Detected (% of pop.) |
Austria | 8,999,973 | 0.36%–3.1% | 1.1% | 99000 | 8291 | 0.09% |
Belgium | 11,579,502 | 1.3%–9.7% | 3.7% | 428400 | 9134 | 0.08% |
Denmark | 5,785,741 | 0.40%–3.1% | 1.1% | 63600 | 2201 | 0.04% |
France | 65,227,357 | 1.1%–7.4% | 3.0% | 1956800 | 37145 | 0.06% |
Germany | 83,792,987 | 0.28%–1.8% | 0.72% | 603300 | 52547 | 0.06% |
Italy | 60,496,082 | 3.2%–26% | 9.8% | 5928600 | 92472 | 0.15% |
Norway | 5,407,670 | 0.09%–1.2% | 0.41% | 22200 | 3845 | 0.07% |
Spain | 46,767,543 | 3.7%–41% | 15% | 7015100 | 72248 | 0.15% |
Sweden | 10,081,948 | 0.85%–8.4% | 3.1% | 312500 | 3447 | 0.03% |
Switzerland | 8,637,694 | 1.3%–7.6% | 3.2% | 276400 | 13152 | 0.15% |
United Kingdom | 67,803,450 | 1.2%–5.4% | 2.7% | 1830700 | 17093 | 0.03% |
Note: WHO reporting laboratory-confirmed cases on 29 March, 10am Central European Time. |
Estimated impact of suppression strategies over 250 days for 3 different strategies. [10] | ||||||
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Unmitigated Scenario | Suppression at 0.2 deaths/100,000/week | Suppression at 1.6 deaths/100,000/week | ||||
Infections | Deaths | Infections | Deaths | Infections | Deaths | |
East Asia & Pacific | 2,117,131,000 | 15,303,000 | 92,544,000 | 442,000 | 632,619,000 | 3,315,000 |
Europe & Central Asia | 801,770,000 | 7,276,000 | 61,578,000 | 279,000 | 257,706,000 | 1,397,000 |
Latin America & Caribbean | 566,993,000 | 3,194,000 | 45,346,000 | 158,000 | 186,595,000 | 729,000 |
Middle East & North Africa | 419,138,000 | 1,700,000 | 30,459,000 | 113,000 | 152,262,000 | 594,000 |
North America | 326,079,000 | 2,981,000 | 17,730,000 | 92,000 | 90,529,000 | 520,000 |
South Asia | 1,737,766,000 | 7,687,000 | 111,703,000 | 475,000 | 629,164,000 | 2,693,000 |
Sub-Saharan Africa | 1,044,858,000 | 2,483,000 | 110,164,000 | 298,000 | 454,968,000 | 1,204,000 |
Total | 7,013,734,000 | 40,624,000 | 469,523,000 | 1,858,000 | 2,403,843,000 | 10,452,000 |
A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.
An emerging infectious disease (EID) is an infectious disease whose incidence has increased recently, and could increase in the near future. The minority that are capable of developing efficient transmission between humans can become major public and global concerns as potential causes of epidemics or pandemics. Their many impacts can be economic and societal, as well as clinical. EIDs have been increasing steadily since at least 1940.
In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. It usually involves keeping a certain distance from others and avoiding gathering together in large groups.
The Faculty of Medicine is the academic centre for medical and clinical research and teaching at Imperial College London. It contains the Imperial College School of Medicine, which is the college's undergraduate medical school.
Neil Morris Ferguson is a British epidemiologist and professor of mathematical biology, who specialises in the patterns of spread of infectious disease in humans and animals. He is the director of the Jameel Institute, and of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, and head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Vice-Dean for Academic Development in the Faculty of Medicine, all at Imperial College London.
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The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the United Kingdom, it has resulted in 24,905,537 confirmed cases, and is associated with 232,112 deaths.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Armenia was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Armenia on 1 March 2020 when its first case was reported. It has spread to all of the regions (marz) of Armenia and has caused 4,400 deaths.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Guinea was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Guinea in March 2020.
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The COVID-19 pandemic in Chad was a part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Chad in March 2020. As the third least developed nation in the world, according to the HDI in 2019, Chad has faced unique economic, social, and political challenges under the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Azra Catherine Hilary Ghani is a British epidemiologist who is a professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London. Her research considers the mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, including malaria, bovine spongiform encephalopathy and coronavirus. She has worked with the World Health Organization on their technical strategy for malaria. She is associate director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis.
Outbreak response or outbreak control measures are acts which attempt to minimize the spread of or effects of a disease outbreak. Outbreak response includes aspects of general disease control such as maintaining adequate hygiene, but may also include responses that extend beyond traditional healthcare settings and are unique to an outbreak, such as physical distancing, contact tracing, mapping of disease clusters, or quarantine. Some measures such as isolation are also useful in preventing an outbreak from occurring in the first place.
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CovidSim is an epidemiological model for COVID-19 developed by Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, led by Neil Ferguson. The Imperial College study addresses the question: If complete suppression is not feasible, what is the best strategy combining incomplete suppression and control that is feasible and leads to acceptable outcomes?
The MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis is a Medical Research Council funded research centre at Imperial College London and a WHO collaborating centre. It is part of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at School of Public Health within the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine. Neil Ferguson is the director of the centre, along with four associate directors: Christl Donnelly, Azra Ghani, Nicholas Grassly, and Timothy Hallett. The centre also collaborates UK Health Protection Agency, and the US Centre for Disease Control. The centre's main research areas are disease outbreak analysis and modelling, vaccines, global health analytics, antimicrobial resistance, and developing methods and tools for studying these areas. The centre was previously called the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling.
Part of managing an infectious disease outbreak is trying to delay and decrease the epidemic peak, known as flattening the epidemic curve. This decreases the risk of health services being overwhelmed and provides more time for vaccines and treatments to be developed. Non-pharmaceutical interventions that may manage the outbreak include personal preventive measures such as hand hygiene, wearing face masks, and self-quarantine; community measures aimed at physical distancing such as closing schools and cancelling mass gathering events; community engagement to encourage acceptance and participation in such interventions; as well as environmental measures such surface cleaning. It has also been suggested that improving ventilation and managing exposure duration can reduce transmission.
The Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics is a research institute at Imperial College London in the fields of epidemiology, mathematical modelling of infectious diseases and emergencies, environmental health, and health economics. Co-founded in 2019 by Imperial College London and Community Jameel, the Jameel Institute is housed in the School of Public Health, within the college's Faculty of Medicine. The mission of the Jameel Institute is "to combat threats from disease worldwide".
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