Note: This is an automated translation (using DeepL) of the original German article.

The number of models is large, what does it take to concretely help with decisions?

The COVID-19 pandemic has impressively demonstrated how quickly science can develop answers and solutions to pressing problems. Parallel to the solution-oriented research, countless papers and publications have been produced to disseminate the new research approaches and the resulting knowledge on the one hand and to enable quality assurance on the other. Especially when using models, it is important that sufficient time is spent on ensuring scientific integrity despite the acute crisis.

This is also how the paper entitled “Supporting COVID-19 policy-making with a predictive epidemiological multi-model warning system” came about, which describes the development of a COVID-19 early warning system based on a combination of simulation models. This paper was submitted, jointly with researchers from TU Wien, GÖG, UMIT, MedUni Wien, CSH, IIASA, Santa Fe Institute and DEXHELPP and dwh GmbH in late 2020.

We are very pleased to announce that this submission has now successfully made it through the review process, and has been published in the Nature journal Communications Medicine on Dec. 8, 2022! Congratulations to all the researchers and colleagues involved on this fine achievement, which is a gratifying way to end the year!