squire enables users to simulate models of SARS-CoV-2 epidemics. This is done using an age-structured SEIR model that also explicitly considers healthcare capacity and disease severity. The model has been used for epidemic modelling in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) for the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, producing trajectories for the potential global burden of COVID-191.
squire has been used throughout the pandemic to provide projections for every country to the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of the first costing for a global response to COVID-192 and the WHO Essential Supplies Forecasting Tool.
P. G. T. Walker, C. Whittaker, O. J. Watson, M. Baguelin, P. Winskill, A. Hamlet, B. A. Djafaara, Z. Cucunubá, D. Olivera Mesa, W. Green, H. Thompson, S. Nayagam, K. E. C. Ainslie, S. Bhatia, S. Bhatt, A. Boonyasiri, O. Boyd, N. F. Brazeau, L. Cattarino, G. Cuomo-Dannenburg, A. Dighe, C. A. Donnelly, I. Dorigatti, S. L. van Elsland, R. FitzJohn, H. Fu, K. A. M. Gaythorpe, L. Geidelberg, N. Grassly, D. Haw, S. Hayes, W. Hinsley, N. Imai, D. Jorgensen, E. Knock, D. Laydon, S. Mishra, G. Nedjati-Gilani, L. C. Okell, H. J. Unwin, R. Verity, M. Vollmer, C. E. Walters, H. Wang, Y. Wang, X. Xi, D. G. Lalloo, N. M. Ferguson, A. C. Ghani, The impact of COVID-19 and strategies for mitigation and suppression in low- and middle-income countries. Science. 369, 413–422 (2020). (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abc0035) ↩︎
T. Tan-Torres Edejer, O. Hanssen, A. Mirelman, P. Verboom, G. Lolong, O. J. Watson, L. L. Boulanger, A. Soucat, Projected health-care resource needs for an effective response to COVID-19 in 73 low-income and middle-income countries: a modelling study. Lancet Glob Health. 8, e1372–e1379 (2020). ↩︎
OJ Watson
Associate Professor
I’m an Associate Professor at Imperial College London, supported by an Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Fellowship. I’m based within Imperial’s AI Initiative, I-X, and the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis.
I develop open, reproducible methods at the intersection of infectious disease modelling, mortality estimation, and AI for public health — supporting decision-making and improving data equity. Recent applications include malaria and COVID-19.
Previously, I was a Schmidt Science Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and held postdoctoral positions at Brown University and Imperial College London.