The Jameel Institute rose to prominence in 2020 under the leadership of Professor Neil Ferguson, Director of the Jameel Institute, when, as part of the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, the Jameel Institute published mathematical modelling of the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] As part of the COVID-19 pandemic response, researchers from the Jameel Institute provided expert advice to the UK government's Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O). In 2022, SPI-M-O was awarded the Weldon Memorial Prize, which is awarded annually by the University of Oxford for "noteworthy contributions to the development of mathematical or statistical methods applied to problems in Biology".[3]
In 2020, from the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the Jameel Institute began publishing regular reports with results of mathematical modelling of the spread of the virus.[7][8][9] The Jameel Institute and other research centers in Imperial involved in the modelling were later grouped into the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team.[10][11] As of November 2020, the team had published 36 reports.[12]
Two fundamental strategies are possible: (a) mitigation, which focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread – reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection, and (b) suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely. Each policy has major challenges. We find that that optimal mitigation policies (combining home isolation of suspect cases, home quarantine of those living in the same household as suspect cases, and social distancing of the elderly and others at most risk of severe disease) might reduce peak healthcare demand by 2/3 and deaths by half. However, the resulting mitigated epidemic would still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over. For countries able to achieve it, this leaves suppression as the preferred policy option.
We show that in the UK and US context, suppression will minimally require a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members. This may need to be supplemented by school and university closures, though it should be recognised that such closures may have negative impacts on health systems due to increased absenteeism. The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package – or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission – will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) – given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed. We show that intermittent social distancing – triggered by trends in disease surveillance – may allow interventions to be relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound.[13]
The report led to changes in policy by the UK and US governments, including more stringent social distancing, quarantine, and other preventative measures, as well as informing policy in other countries worldwide.[14][8][10][9]
Coursera
To provide education about the pandemic, the Jameel Institute launched a free massive open online course on Coursera called "Science Matters: Let's Talk About COVID-19".[15] The most popular course launched on Coursera in 2020, the Jameel Institute had over 130,000 enrolled learners that year.[16] The course was presented by Jameel Institute research lead Professor Helen Ward and deputy director Dr Katharina Hauck, with specific modules in collaboration with other researchers from across Imperial.[17]
