SIR-type Epidemic Models for Education at Web

Abstract

SIR-type epidemic models have become of big interest also for education, generally in modelling and simulation, and specifically in biomedical systems. As consequence, also various SIR-type models have been integrated into the MMT E-learning System used at TU Wien in various lectures on modelling and simulation. This contribution introduces the MMT E-Learning System and reports on the up to now implemented models and experiments for pandemic systems. The range starts with the basic Kermack–McKendrick SIR model with parameter studies and identification tasks, suggesting extensions to SIRS, SIRDS, etc. models, - as case study for the simulation circle. Students are not only invited to ‘play’ with infection and contact parameters, but also to test lockdown strategies and vaccination strategies. Next, the classes or cohorts of exposed and quarantined people show extensions of the basic ODE SIR model dynamics, followed by MMT modules with adaptive lockdown strategies and with integration of mutated variants of a pathogen. Modules with sensitivity equations for the parameters discuss stability of the dynamics, and discrete model variants show the good coincidence of ODE models and difference equation models for the pandemic dynamics. And last but not least, an advanced MMT module introduces into spatial models for pandemics based on cellular automatons