HERoS presented its objectives, main finding to date and current lines of research at the online Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks 2021 – an event co-hosted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. ‘Emergency Response in a Pandemic’ was one of the priority topics identified for this year’s edition.
The HERoS project will the presented at the online edition of the Humanitarian Networks & Partnerships Week 2021 – an event organised by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The session dedicated to HERoS will take place on 29 April 2021 from 12h to 13h30 CET.
Registration to both the event and the specific session is free and required.
Agenda
Project presentation – Prof. Gyöngyi Kovács, HUMLOG Institute – Hanken School of Economics Governance crisis modelling and policies during COVID-19 – Prof. Kees Boesman, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Behavioural models in epidemics – Prof. Tina Comes, Technical University of Delft Supply chain management in pandemics – Prof. Gyöngyi Kovács Social media analytics during COVID-19 – Prof. Harith Alani, The Open University
Partner Hanken Scool of Economics has developed a pandemic response training module that will be part of the Introduction to Humanitarian Logistics MOOC that it currently offers. The ‘Disease Outbreaks’ module draws from the research carried out within HERoS and provides an overview of the different types of outbreaks and their impact, particularly on supply chains. Some of the topics discussed in the module include supply chain disruptions, mitigation strategies and civil-military cooperation. The MOOC is free, open to all and ‘always on’, meaning that prospective participants can start the course at any time.
HERoS partner Nordic Healthcare Group has developed an online tool to visualise occupancy rates at intensive care units in different countries and regions of the European Union between February and November 2020. It is based on datasets from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) as well as national health authorities.
Availability of data concerning ICU capacity at regional and country level in real-time is pivotal to organise health infrastructure at the EU level during a crisis. In a statement issued on 29 October 2020, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, highlights that information sharing among members states would allow for cross-border sharing of resources in case of regional or national shortage. This declaration is closely in line with the observation that ICU capacity utilisation varied greatly among EU countries and regions during the first wave of the pandemic exposed in HERoS deliverable D2.2 Healthcare system analysis and the ensuing recommendation to ensure the availability of reliable data to distribute the ICU load across regional and national borders if needed.
This tool is an example of how data can be processed to guide decision making by public authorities. It can be accessed at this URL: https://nhg.fi/en/covid19map/
Thank you for your interest in the webinar ‘HERoS: Results for the Rapid Response Phase’, which took place on October 27th 2020.
In case you couldn’t join or if you wish to view the presentation again, you will find below the recording of the event. Furthermore, you can access the slides and the deliverablesdiscussed.
The HERoS project officially started its activities on 1 April 2020. Active for 3 years, HERoS will develop open data sets, models, methodologies and open source software that will support decision-makers in the response.
