Workshop Description

Epidemic nowcasting broadly refers to assessing the current state by understanding key pathogenic, epidemiologic, clinical, and socio-behavioral characteristics of an ongoing outbreak. Its primary objective is to provide situational awareness and inform decisions on control responses. In the event of large-scale sustained emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists need to constantly update their aims and analytics with respect to the rapidly evolving emergence of new questions, data, and findings to synthesize real-time evidence for policy decisions. In this workshop, we share our views on the functional aims, rationale, data requirements and challenges of nowcasting at different stages of an epidemic, drawing on the ongoing COVID-19 experience. We highlight how recent advances in the computational and laboratory sciences could be harnessed to complement traditional approaches to enhance the scope, timeliness, reliability, and utility of epidemic nowcasting.

​

Learning objectives:

1. To understand the aims, data requirements and challenges of epidemic nowcasting

2. To understand how epidemic nowcasting informs public health policymaking

3. To discuss how recent advances in the computational and laboratory sciences could be harnessed to complement traditional approaches to enhance epidemic nowcasting

​

Bio sketch of the instructors:

​

Professor Joseph Wu

Professor Wu specializes in mathematical and statistical modelling of diseases and their interventions. His research aims are: (i) to develop useful analytics and strategies for disease control and prevention; and (ii) to translate his research findings into public health policy and practice for improving global health. He has worked on COVID-19, seasonal and pandemic influenza, hand-foot-and-mouth diseases, HPV, MERS, yellow fever, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer and breast cancer. He earned his PhD in Operations Research from MIT in 2003 and BS in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 1999.

​

Professor Wu is a Lead Scientist in the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D²4H) at the Hong Kong Science Park. He is the director of HKU's first Massive Open Online Courseware (MOOC) Epidemics which has had more than 30,000 people enrolled since its first launch in 2014. He is the director of the Croucher Summer Course Vaccinology for Public Health and Clinical Practice.

​

He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health in the UK and a member of the WHO Advisory Committee on Immunization and Vaccines-related Implementation Research (IVIR-AC). He is an associate editor of the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and. He is a member of the MIT SOLVE Challenge Leadership Group and an SME advisor of MIT Innovation Node.

​

Dr Kathy Leung

Dr Kathy Leung obtained her PhD in mathematical modeling of infectious diseases from The University of Hong Kong (HKU). Currently she works at HKU School of Public Health as an Assistant Professor. She is interested in mathematical modeling of a wide range of diseases such as influenza, MERS, COVID-19, hand-foot-and-mouth disease, HPV, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer and breast cancer. She also conducts epidemiological and economic evaluations of intervention strategies, such as HFMD vaccination and cancer screening programs. She is one of the core developers of HKU's first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Epidemics. She is also a co-investigator of Program 1 of the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D²4H) at the Hong Kong Science Park.