Abstract: Living with uncertainty has been a defining feature of the COVID-19 pandemic. Decisions must be made in the face of this uncertainty. Mathematical modelling can be used to explore policy choices and their repercussions, both ahead of their implementation and post-hoc. I will discuss some applications of policy models to support decision-making during the pandemic and lessons learned.

Bio: Ashleigh Tuite, PhD MPH MSc, is an infectious disease epidemiologist and Assistant Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Her research focuses on integrating data with mathematical models to study the spread of communicable diseases and identify optimal intervention and control strategies. She completed her PhD at the University of Toronto and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.