Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Special report: The simulations driving the world’s response to COVID-19

How epidemiologists rushed to model the coronavirus pandemic.
  1. David Adam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Factory workers in China eat their lunch under social distancing restrictions sitting on spaced out red stools

Staff at a car-manufacturing plant in Wuhan, China, observe social-distancing measures during their lunch break. Credit: AFP/Getty

When Neil Ferguson visited the heart of British government in London’s Downing Street, he was much closer to the COVID-19 pandemic than he realized. Ferguson, a mathematical epidemiologist at Imperial College London, briefed officials in mid-March on the latest results of his team’s computer models, which simulated the rapid spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 through the UK population. Less than 36 hours later, he announced on Twitter that he had a fever and a cough. A positive test followed. The disease-tracking scientist had become a data point in his own project.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 580, 316-318 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01003-6

Additional reporting by Richard Van Noorden.

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 03 April 2020: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to SimCity instead of The Sims video-game series.

References

  1. Ferguson, N. M. et al. Preprint at Spiral https://doi.org/10.25561/77482 (2020).

  2. Klepac, P. et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.16.20023754 (2020).

  3. Ferguson, N. M. et al. Nature 437, 209–214 (2005).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Ferguson, N. M. et al. Nature 442, 448–452 (2006).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Walker, P. G. T. et al. Preprint at Spiral https://go.nature.com/2yqz47x (2020).

  6. Funk, S. et al. PLoS Comput. Biol. 15, e1006785 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Prem, K. et al. Lancet Public Health https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30073-6 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Huang, C. et al. Lancet 395, 497–506 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Flaxman, S. et al. Preprint at Spiral https://doi.org/10.25561/77731 (2020).

  10. Lourenço, J. et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.24.20042291 (2020).

  11. Zhang, J. et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.19.20039107 (2020).

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • Two Junior Research Group Leaders (f/d/m) for Photonics

    Friedrich Schiller University is a traditional University with a strong research profile based in the heart of Germany. As a University covering al...

    07743, Jena (DE)

    Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

  • PhD Researcher Positions (f/m/d)

    Yeast Synthetic Biology

    Germany (DE)

    Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

  • Reporter, Nature

    Reporter, Nature Location: London, UK - Hybrid office and remote working Closing date: 13th May 2024   Nature, the world’s most authoritative scien...

    London (Greater) (GB)

    Springer Nature Ltd

  • Vice-Chancellor and President

    The Chinese University of Hong Kong Vice-Chancellor and President The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is conducting a worldwide search for t...

    Hong Kong (HK)

    The Chinese University of Hong Kong

  • ERC-funded PhD and Postdoc Positions in Comparative Genomics

    We are looking for two PhD and/or PostDoc candidates for the 6 years ERC-funded grant project "BATPROTECT" in Frankfurt a.M., Germany

    Frankfurt am Main, Hessen (DE)

    Senckenberg Society for Nature Research

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links