Contributed by DJ Darwin Bandoy, PhD Candidate
I am now in my year four of my PhD studies in Integrative Pathobiology in UC Davis, still in the middle of the COVID-19 Pandemic. I presented in the lab meeting yesterday the theoretical framework of my epidemic modelling work from the UP Pandemic Response Team. Understanding compartmental models using differential equations is challenging given my limited background in calculus and hence I learned it from the ground up and culminated with a training in infectious disease modelling at the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine.
But the key principles are the same, we effectively reduce infections by reducing effective contact rate and by physically blocking the viruses by wearing masks and killing the virus using handwashing with soap.
