New scientific model said to predict virus peaks of contamination in Europe
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A team of researchers has revealed a pioneering model that aims to predict the rate of propagation of Covid-19 in each country in Europe.
A team of scientists has set about modelling the future trajectory of the virus’s spread in Europe. Their simulations, published on September 23 in the scientific journal Nature, predict that all European countries will have reached the peak of the second wave of the pandemic by January 2021 at the latest.
In the United Kingdom, the number of new infections looks set to continue to rise until mid-November. Poland and Sweden, two countries relying on herd immunity to fight the virus, are expected to keep rising until the beginning of next year.
To achieve these predictions, a team of scientists, led by French National Centre for Scientific Research physicist Giacomo Cacciapaglia, has adopted an innovative approach to simulate the temporal evolution of the epidemic: particle physics. Researchers have applied an equation typically used to predict the interactions between tiny physical elements to the trajectory of the coronavirus.
In this case, the researchers only took into account the total number of Covid-19 infections in each country and also any movements within a territory and between European States from March to July 2020. There was no need to take into account factors such as levels of social distancing, the average number of people per household or other criteria that are required in other models.
