Speaker: Dr. Daniel Coombs, Mathematics, University of British Columbia
Dr. Coombs obtained his MSc and PhD in applied mathematics from UArizona. He then did postdoctoral work in the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics group at Los Alamos National Lab, before joining the Dept of Mathematics at UBC as a faculty member, in 2003. Dr. Coombs contributes to our understanding of health-related sciences, especially immunology, within-host infection, and epidemiology, through development and application of mathematical/computational/statistical methods. He works closely with experimental scientists at UBC and BC Children’s Hospital Research Centre, and public health experts at the BC CDC. He is a member of the Canadian Chief Science Advisor’s expert panel on COVID19. Abstract: Many jurisdictions around the world are in the process of easing restrictions that were put in place to reduce the spread of the epidemic. At this point, mathematical modelling allows us to project possible future courses for the epidemic. In this talk, I will talk about an age-structured model that allows us to project some possible impacts of relaxing social distancing in Vancouver, British Columbia, discuss strategies for modelling contact tracing, and also discuss some modelling results around herd immunity.