EPIDEMIC: a didactic tool for teaching mathematical epidemiology

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a growing interest in society in the area of epidemiology.  In this context, emerged the initiative COVID-19: Observatório Fluminense (COVID19RJ), which  is managed by a group of independent researchers affiliated with different Brazilian institutions.  COVID19RJ publishes trend and monitoring graphs of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and some  countries around the world. Due to this demand, the need for an educational code for research in  epidemiology arose, with the objective of encouraging and allowing the entry of more researchers  in this area. So, EPIDEMIC was developed, this being a code that is organized in a didactic  way and divided into three modules: modeling, trends and forecasts. In the modeling module,  compartmental models are used to simulate population dynamics during an epidemic. In the trends  module, it is possible to monitor the behavior of epidemics in countries, states or municipalities.  And in the forecasts module, a statistical regressor is used to obtain predictions about the short-  term behavior of epidemic curves. EPIDEMIC provides a tutorial with explanations and examples  of use. The code was developed on the free software GNU Octave and is compatible with the  proprietary software MATLAB. EPIDEMIC presents itself as a good aid tool for the teaching and  learning process of epidemiology and, consequently, for the increase of researchers in the área.