NEW DELHI: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has initiated a Covid-19 Indian National Supermodel to help monitor the future transmission of infection, thus aiding decisions involving health system readiness and other mitigation measures.
While infections and mortality are being monitored, the Centre said it is imperative to bring in a robust forecasting model for predicting the spread and enhancing disease surveillance.
“Inspired by India’s history of using mathematical models for disaster management planning of metrological events, DST has initiated this exercise to pool in expertise in the field and create one model for the entire country that will be subjected to rigorous tests required for evidence-based forecasting, routinely practiced in weather forecasting communities,” said the ministry.
The model will entirely rely only on the data that is relevant to Covid-19, and also have an adaptive built-in component to learn from the newer trends in the data.
It will aggregate successful evidence-based mathematical and statistical forecasting models and include the best predictive analytics for robust forecasting of infectious disease spread.
As part of this initiative, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) and IISc, Bangalore will co-ordinate to connect and work with all Covid-19 modeling projects and programs in the country.
This will help develop a set of benchmarks to assess various models and to finally deliver the Covid-19 India National Supermodel.