One thing to point out here is that ABMs modeling diseases are used to influence policy (e.g., https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214109X1500162X); however, the time horizons tend to be years in the future and the questions tend to be along the lines of "How long will a treatment be effective before it needs to be replaced?" These models typically take months to years to develop, calibrate, and run to generate sufficient data to be useful though.

I suspect the biggest problem we are encountering with COVID-19 is that most of the models out there are not generalized "platforms" that we can plug an illness into, but very specialized models of a particular, well understood, illness. It's hard to develop anything for COVID-19 when the literature still doesn't have a consensus on what the mortality rate is for example.

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 2:32 PM Scott Moss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I think everyone agrees that forecasting is not a useful activity with our models. Some contributions to this thread have interpreted the question to mean: what data and level of disaggregation should we use? Others have suggested or endorsed particular modelling approaches. Some both. One of us has suggested it is too late for us to develop anything new and useful.

I suspect that last statement is close to the truth. I wrote and published my first agent-based social simulation model in the mid-1980s and I was by no means the only one — even discounting the system dynamics literature. So why, well into or past the fourth decade of social simulation modelling do we not have the tools and expertise and common ground to make a useful and clear contribution to the most important policy issue since the Second World War and, wars aside, perhaps ever? (Think black death)

Is it possible for us all to stop coming at this problem from our own interests and the models and modelling frameworks and platforms we have developed and used? Can we step back and collectively consider why we are not able to provide clear and useful guidance and assistance to policy-makers in the course of this global emergency?

I have a proposal.

Please could we establish a group of more and less experienced modellers to produce an assessment of the reasons we have made no real contributions to policy formation during the COVID-19 emergency and produce some proposals for a development path to useful, flexible, policy-supporting social simulation modelling. Participants would need only to come with open minds and, in the first instance, to explore the reasons why we failed to make our mark on the development of policies for mitigating or containing the pandemic.

Obviously, if you think we are doing just fine or that your own next model or platform or whatever will solve all of the problems, then you would not want to be involved in such a group.

Scott Moss
Brookfold
The Wash
Chapel en le Frith
High Peak
SK23 0QW
United Kingdom

tel: +44 (0)1663 750913
mobile: +44 (0)776 968 9991
www:scott.b rookfold.uk

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