The Jameel Institute at Imperial College London today soft-launched DAEDALUS Explore, a digital platform that addresses the agonising trade-off between lives and livelihoods made by policymakers in epidemic preparedness and response.
The soft launch took place at a workshop for epidemiologists, mathematical modellers and policymakers in Bangkok, Thailand.
Supported by Community Jameel and Citadel founder and chief executive officer Kenneth C. Griffin, DAEDALUS Explore applies an integrated economic-epidemiological (econ-epi) model for – so far – around 60 countries and seven pathogens with pandemic potential.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 15 million excess deaths; the largest global economic crisis in more than a century; and many millions of students experienced an isolated, inadequate and interrupted education.
Facing a public health emergency, policymakers often found themselves making near-impossible decisions balancing the trade-off between lives and livelihoods, often without the tools or evidence to make informed decisions about these trade-offs.
As a result, public health, economic and educational policies were often developed and adopted in silos.
Yet lives and livelihoods are entangled, and attempts to create a divide between the two denies this reality and ignores the suffering that arises from the unintended consequences.
In response to this dilemma, the Jameel Institute developed DAEDALUS, an integrated econ-epi model that utilises a mix of economic data (such as what percentage of a country’s workforce works in each business sector) and epidemiological data (such as the transmissibility of a pathogen).
DAEDALUS outputs both economic and epidemiological outcomes of interest – such as expected lives lost and economic losses in a future pandemic scenario.
Through DAEDALUS, the Jameel Institute aims to provide decision-makers with answers to policy questions, such as, “How much international tourism can we allow to continue while ensuring our hospitals are not overwhelmed with patients?” or “What vaccine coverage do we first need to achieve to be able to re-open schools without causing a significant increase in excess deaths?”
DAEDALUS will also project the benefits of better pandemic preparedness, such as bolstered vaccine manufacturing capacity or increases in hospital capacity.
Next year, the Jameel Institute will launch DAEDALUS Explore, a dashboard designed for policymakers, academics and the public to see how different levels of pandemic preparedness and response would impact health, education and the economy in their country of interest under different pandemic scenarios.
A preliminary version of the platform, still under development, was presented at the workshop today.
Professor Katharina Hauck, deputy director of the Jameel Institute, said: “With DAEDALUS Explore, we are turning a complex model into an easy-to-use tool. We can empower decision makers in countries around the world to make the best decisions for pandemic preparedness, and to navigate between lives-and-livelihoods when responding to pandemics. The Jameel Institute hopes that DAEDALUS Explore becomes a valuable global public good to support effective pandemic preparedness and response in the future.”
The Jameel Institute-Kenneth C. Griffin Initiative for the Economics of Pandemic Preparedness – which is powering the development of DAEDALUS – was launched with a call-to-action at the 2022 Philanthropy Asia Summit in Singapore, organised by Temasek Trust and Temasek Foundation.
Community Jameel is an impact fellowship member of the Philanthropy Asia Alliance, a Temasek Trust initiative.
Led by Professor Katharina Hauck, deputy director of the Jameel Institute, the initiative brings together epidemiologists, economists and data modellers from across Imperial, including researchers from the World Health Organisation, the Singaporean Ministry of Health’s programme for research in epidemic preparedness and response and the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, and Umeå University in Sweden.
Founded in 2019 by Imperial and Community Jameel, the Jameel Institute is a centre of excellence for the combat of disease threats worldwide.
Over 100 mathematical modellers, epidemiologists and other researchers from across Imperial collaborate with the Jameel Institute on its pioneering work.
