Some example research questions are included below; you may select one or choose your own. If you are unsure whether your research question(s) would meet the case study competition criteria, please check with Dr. Morrison.

Sample research question 1: What would have been the impact of fewer or no public health interventions / shut-downs on the total number of cases and deaths of COVID-19 in Canada during 2020? (You could instead focus on a particular geographic area within Canada, such as a city or province).

Sample research question 2: The initial stages of the COVID-10 outbreak in Canada were challenging for public health for many reasons, one being a lack of sufficient tests to know the true number of infections in the community. Given the number of deaths that occurred in Canada (or a given geographic area of your choosing), and the best estimates of the mortality rate of COVID-19, what were the likely true number of infections over time given the early stage of the outbreak in March and April 2020?

Your case study report and poster must include:

• The research question(s) you sought to address with your analysis.
• The source of all parameters used in your simulation models (for example, population numbers, reproductive numbers, incubation period length).
• A discussion on the impact of your assumptions and parameters and the limitations of these types of models.
• At least one visualization of your simulated data over time.
• A summary of the key takeaways from your analysis.

Evaluation & grading points

Each team should design a poster that evaluates their research question(s), and present their results for approximately 10 minutes (plus an additional 8-10 minutes for discussion). The case study competition will be evaluated as follows:

§  Creative visualizations of the data (20%)

§  Thoughtfully curated input data for the given research question (10%)

§  Appropriateness, creativity, and understanding of the strengths and limitations of the model proposed (50%)

§  Quality and clarity of presentation (20%)

Resources for getting started

There are many existing packages to support compartment modelling, and many tutorials for understanding how the various versions of these models operate.

Useful papers

• He, Shaobo, Yuexi Peng, and Kehui Sun.
  "SEIR modeling of the COVID-19 and its dynamics." Nonlinear Dynamics 101.3 (2020): 1667-1680.
   
• Iwata, Kentaro, and Chisato Miyakoshi.
  "A Simulation on Potential Secondary Spread of Novel Coronavirus in an Exported Country Using a Stochastic Epidemic SEIR Model." Journal of Clinical Medicine 9.4 (2020): 944.
   
• Ganyani, Tapiwa, Christel Faes, and Niel Hens.
  "Simulation and Analysis Methods for Stochastic Compartmental Epidemic Models." Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application 8 (2020).