Maths on the Move

Like many couples, Ellen Brooks Pollock and Leon Danon, have had to make it through the pandemic juggling lockdowns, child care and work.  But unlike many of us, they have also both been working together on the mathematical front line of the COVID-19 pandemic.  
Ellen and Leon are both both from the University of Bristol. The are members of the JUNIPER consortium of modelling groups from across the UK whose research and insights feed into the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (otherwise known as SPI-M) and SAGE, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, both of which advise the UK government on the scientific aspects of the pandemic.
If you or someone you loved found yourself living alone during the various lockdowns you benefitted directly from Ellen and Leon's work: as we find out in the podcast, it was their work on household bubbling which showed that these support bubbles were safe.
We spoke to Ellen and Leon in July 2021 for our special podcast series On the mathematical front line.  The series features epidemiologists whose efforts have been crucial in the fight against the pandemic. They are the people who make sense of the data to estimate things like the R number, and who make the mathematical models that inform (and sometimes do not inform) government policy.
 

Mike Tildesley is now a professor in the Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology and Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research at the University of Warwick  - but he started out doing a PhD in astrophysics, which is far literally and mathematically from studying the spread of diseases. We talked to Mike in July 2021 about his unusual route into epidemiology, the work he's doing on the pandemic, and about the highs and lows of working on the mathematical frontline.
 
Mike is a member of the  JUNIPER modelling consortium, and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (SPI-M) that advises the government on the scientific aspects of the pandemic.  This is the second episode of our special podcast series On the mathematical frontline, where we talk to the mathematicians working on the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the maths they do, how they go about it, and what impact their work on the pandemic has had on their lives.
 

Over the last two years we have done a lot of reporting on the maths of the COVID-19 pandemic. Behind the maths there are of course people — those mathematicians who make the epidemiological models that do (and sometimes do not do not) inform government policy, who are grappling with the unprecedented challenge of coming to grips with a live pandemic unfolding in front of their eyes.
Our special podcast series, On the mathematical frontline, is about those people. It explores the maths they do, how they go about it, and the impact it has on their personal lives.
The first person we spoke to for this series back in February 2021 was Julia Gog, Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Cambridge, participant of SAGE and member of the epidemic modelling group SPI-M.
Gog is also a founding member of the JUNIPER modelling consortium we are collaborating with, and which you'll hear more about in the podcast.
So what is it like working on the mathematical frontline? Find out more with Julia Gog!

Today, 23 March 2022, marks two years since the UK locked down for the first time in the COVID-19 pandemic.  We relaunch the Plus podcast by looking back to where our pandemic coverage all began, by revisiting our podcast from April 2020.
Back in March and April 2020 one thing was on everybody's mind: the novel coronavirus - now better known as COVID-19. In this podcast we spoke to two people who have become very familiar to many of us over the last two years.  We reported on our first COVID-19 conversation with Julia Gog, an epidemiologist who has been informing the Science Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).  Julia is now a close collaborator with us here at Plus as part of the JUNIPER modelling consortium (as we'll find out in the next podcast).  We also spoke with David Spiegelhalter, Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, who is now a familiar figure through his frequent appearance on radio, TV and in print giving clear and calm explanations about the numbers behind the pandemic.  David told us about how to communicate science during a crisis.  And, at the end of the podcast, we had a go at explaining the maths of herd immunity in one minute.
To find out more about the topics covered in this podcast see:
Communicating the coronavirus crisis
How can maths fight a pandemic?
A call to action on COVID-19
Taking the pandemic temperature
And you can find out much more in all our other coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic
The music in this podcast comes from the band eusa. The track is called Now we are all SoB's.