Deliverables

Governance

• Drawing on a selective review of published literature, theoretical constructs from organization sciences, public administration and political sciences, and feedback from experts in three countries (Netherlands, Finland and Italy), “D1.1 Recommendations for governance and policies in the COVID-19 response” conceptualizes the COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences as a wicked problem; a complex and dynamic societal challenge for which there is no single and widely accepted solution. It also analyzes the outbreak as a slow burning crisis, with long lasting effects well beyond when the “hot phase” of the crisis is over.

• “D1.2 Lessons learned and best practices” builds on HERoS’ Deliverable 1.1 ‘Recommendations for governance and policies in the COVID-2019 response’. This deliverable contains three parts. Part A drives on extensive qualitative research in three European countries (the Netherlands, Finland, and Ireland). Part B presents best governance practices and challenges in cross-border medical supply chain. It takes lessons learned from the EU joint procurement and the COVAX initiative for the purchase and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Part C reflects on the social network Municipio Solidale in Rome the charity work in the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Part D provides the best practices from deployment of UK-MED and PCPM’s Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs).

• Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, HERoS partner PCPM has deployed emergency medical teams to Italy, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uganda to provide ICU and case management support as well as training to local medical staff. Within HERoS, PCPM has used this experience to update minimum datasets collected by EMTs to include COVID-19 surveillance data and streamline standard operating procedures of EMT deployment. The effort – which is reflected in “D1.3 Changing workflows and methods to support COVID-19 outbreak surveillance“- has been carried out in collaboration with the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe and tested in real-life conditions during a recent deployment in Uganda.

Epidemiological and behavioural modelling 

• “D2.1 Local behavioural model and recommendations for local COVID-19” response makes a head start on agent-based modelling that provides insights into the dynamics of the spread and the impact of different policies in two cities. Based on this, we provide recommendations for cities and governmental bodies on robust policies that help to control the spread of the disease.

• “D2.2 Healthcare System Analysis” assesses how healthcare systems responded to the crises during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. In the study we analyse how different health care system features, country characteristics, and COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions affected the spread of the virus on healthcare systems in Europe in the spring of 2020 and how the health care systems responded. Note: An ICU capacity online tool created within the context of this deliverable is now available. 

• “D2.3 coupled epidemiological models and scenario analyses” develops a coupled model and conducts a scenario analysis. The coupled model combines the agent-based model (c.f. deliverable 2.1) with a  system dynamics model. The scenario analysis focuses on the impact of travel on the spread of the virus. A GIS dashboard allows visualisation of the model outcomes.

Medical supply chain management 

• The objective of “D3.1 Gap analysis and recommendations for securing medical supplies for the COVID-19 response” is to identify the gaps in the medical supply chains caused by COVID-19, and to make recommendations helping to secure medical supplies. Thus, the present deliverable contributes to the effectiveness and efficiency of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak”.

• “D3.2 –  Adaptation of workflows for drone deliveries to quarantines” analyses the potential benefits of the delivery of medicines using drones in the context of pandemics as well as the factors that hinder its development. We also surveyed the UAV, crew workflow and ground support services framework and prepared recommendations for legal implementation. On this base, we propose a model workflow for UAV delivery of medicines.

• “D3.3 – Demonstration of drone deliveries to quarantines on the UAV full mission simulator” reports on the demonstration of drone deliveries to quarantines on the UAV full mission simulator built under the HERoS project. The simulator allowed for understanding and testing intricacies of using drones long-range flights for medical and humanitarian aid deliveries. The workflows of such medical deliveries can be found in D3.2.

• “D3.4 – Methodology for economic impact assessment of supply chain disruptions” develops a methodology to estimate the economic impact of the COVID-19 shock. It investigates how the COVID-19 shock is propagated through a network of global supplier-customer relationships, capturing interdependencies between suppliers and customers along the supply chain, allowing us to estimate the cascading effects of the COVID-19 shock.

Online misinformation 

• “D4.1 – COVID-19 misinformation tracking” presents the state of the art in measuring the impact of fact-checking , highlighting a gap in which our knowledge of misinformation spread patterns is disconnected from how we approach the diffusion of fact-checking information. It  highlight the necessity for understanding the “co-spread” of both misinformation and fact-checking information, to be able to measure the impact of fact-checking on specific misinforming claims temporally and, potentially, at the geographic or platform level.

• In “D4.2 – Crowdsourced information clustering“, we describe our efforts to identify sources of data from which we can gather insights about what kinds of needs (informational and tangible) citizens have shared during the COVID-19 pandemic. We introduce our methodological approaches for processing this data and making it a useful resource for the research community, as well as government officials and authorities who are charged with handling the crisis.

Dissemination & training

• “D5.5 – Dedicated training to end users” reports on the development a dedicated training session on health emergency response in interconnected systems tailored to the specific needs of HERoS end users. All previous tasks of the project feed into the development of this training package, which was delivered at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam on 21-22 June 2022.

Publications 

Scientific articles and conference proceedings

• Mikko Nuutinen, Ira Haavisto, Antti J. Niemi, Antti Rissanen, Mikko Ikivuo, Riikka-Leena Leskelä, “Statistical model for factors correlating with COVID-19 deaths”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 82, 2022, 103333, ISSN 2212-4209, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103333
• M. Mrozek, M. Sirenko, A. Foks-Ryznar and B. Sawicki, “Interactive Visualization of Agent-Based Pandemic Simulation in Web Browser,” 2022 23rd International Conference on Computational Problems of Electrical Engineering (CPEE), 2022, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/CPEE56060.2022.9919642
• Falagara Sigala, I., Sirenko, M., Comes, T. and Kovács, G. (2022), “Mitigating personal protective equipment (PPE) supply chain disruptions in pandemics – a system dynamics approach”, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 42 No. 13, pp. 128-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-09-2021-0608
• Hlekiwe Kachali, Ira Haavisto, Riikka-Leena Leskelä, Auri Väljä, Mikko Nuutinen, “Are preparedness indices reflective of pandemic preparedness? A COVID-19 reality check”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 77, 2022, 103074, ISSN 2212-4209.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103074
• Boersma, F.K., M. Büscher and C. Fonio (2022). “Crisis Management, Surveillance, and Digital Ethics in the COVID-19 Era”, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 30(1): 2-9. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-5973.12398
• Brakel, R. van, O. Kundina, C. Fonio and F.K. Boersma (2022). “Bridging values: finding a balance between privacy and control. The case of Corona apps in Belgium and the Netherlands”, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 30(1): 50-58. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-5973.12395
• Grégoire Burel, Tracie Farrell, Harith Alani (2021). “Demographics and topics impact on the co-spread of COVID-19 misinformation and fact-checks on Twitter”, Information Processing & Management, Volume 58, Issue 6,2021, 102732, ISSN 0306-4573, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2021.102732.
• Falagara Sigala, Ioanna; Kovács, Gyöngyi (2020). “Lessons learned from humanitarian logistics to manage supply chain disruptions”, Journal of Supply Chain Management. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jscm.12253
• Burel, Gregoire; Farrell, Tracie; Mensio, Martino; Khare, Prashant and Alani, Harith (2020). “Co-Spread of Misinformation and Fact-Checking Content during the Covid-19 Pandemic”, Proceedings of the 12th International Social Informatics Conference (SocInfo), LNCS. http://oro.open.ac.uk/71786/1/SocInfopaper.pdf
• Boersma, Kees; Larruina, Robert (2020). “Restoring the medical supply chain from below. The role of social entrepreneurship in the production of face masks during the COVID-19 crisis”, 18th ISCRAM Conference Proceedings. http://keesboersma.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ISCRAM-2021-WiP-KR.pdf

Media articles 

• Alani, Harith; Burel, Grégoire; Farrell, Tracie. Elon Musk could roll back social media moderation – just as we’re learning how it can stop misinformation. In: The Conversation (2022).
• Gevolgen coronacrisis voor scholieren zichtbaar: ‘Lijkt alsof we de sociale regels zijn vergeten.’ Interview with Lianne Cremers and Cato Janssen (VU). In: Parool (2021)
• Felaktig information om corona sprids fortare än faktagranskad. In: HBL (2021)
• Björkqvist, Anna (2021). Struliga leveranskedjor saktar ner världsekonomins återhämtning – Hankenprofessor: Pandemin visar hur optimering av kedjorna gjort oss sårbara. In: Svenska Yle
• HERoS: How can we improve our response to health emergencies? In: European Sciences-Media Hub (2021)
• A scientist’s opinion: Interview with Gyöngyi Kovacs about the EU Project HERoS. In: European Sciences-Media Hub (2021)
• A scientist’s opinion: Interview with Ira Haavisto about the EU Project HERoS. In: European Sciences-Media Hub (2021)
• Gray, Richard (2021). How vulnerable groups were left behind in pandemic response. In: Horizon Magazine
• Kovács, Gyöngyi (2021).Vaccin mot covid-19: Större produktionskapacitet och stabila leveranser är i huvudfokus. In: Ekonomiska Samfundets Tidskrift
• Gray, Richard (2020). Lack of solidarity hampered Europe’s coronavirus response, research finds. In: Horizon Magazine
• Kovács, Gyöngyi ((2020). Covid-19: de ekonomiska konsekvenserna av en epidemi. In Ekonomiska Samfundets Tidskrift
• Sarkis, Joseph ; Kovács, Gyöngyi (2020). How Humanitarian Logistics Can Inform a New Normal for Supply Chains – Post-COVID-19
• Bruun, Alva; Kovács, Gyöngyi (2020). From risk to resilience in the global supply chain economy after Covid-19, a humanitarian response. In Discover Society

Blogs

• Alani, Harith (2022). Battling misinformation about the Ukraine-Russian war.
• Falagara Sigala, Ioanna (2021). Your face mask impacts the global supply chains. Humlog Blogs. 
• Bergtora Sandvik, Kristin; Kovács, Gyöngyi; Comes, Tina (2020). The Coldest Cold Chain: Chilling Effects of Covid-19 Vaccines. International Health Policies.
• Falagara Sigala, Ioanna; Kovács, Gyöngyi;  Maghsoudi, Amin; Piotrowicz, Wojciech; Storsjö, Isabell; Vega, Diego (2020). Temperature control matters! Fact sheet to prepare for COVID-19 vaccination programmes. Humlog Blogs

Presentations

• Not a silver bullet: Searching for lockdown alternatives in an artificial province – The Society for Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty Meeting (TU Delft)
• EURO-HOpe 2022
  • Securing Vaccine Supplies: Implications for research, policy, and practice (Hanken, TU Delft, Squadron)
  • Pushing forward the boundaries of drone deliveries for emergency response (Hanken, Squadron)The Economic impact of the supply chain disruption during COVID-19 (Hanken, TU Delft)
• EMT response in COVID-19 pandemic: Best practices from deployment of UK-Med and PCPM EMTs – WHO EMT Global Meeting 2022 (PCPM)
• Screening of the ethnographic film We thought it would be fun and dialogue with stakeholders in October 2022 – Spinoza Lyceum Amsterdam (Vrije University Amsterdam)
• Monitoring and Understanding the Co-Spread of COVID-19 Misinformation and Fact-checks – Global Fact 9 (Open University)
• Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks 2022
  • COVID-19 Crisis Governance: responding to challenges in nursing homes in Europe – Lianne Cremers and Cato Janssen (Vrije University Amsterdam)
  • Do we need to violate people’s privacy to build better models and predictions? – Mikhail Sirenko (TU Delft)
  • Changes in health status of elderly in long-term care during COVID-19 – Ira Haavisto (Nordic Healthcare Group)
  • Assessing Economic impact of COVID-19 – Abdelsalam Hamid Abakar (Hanken School of Economics)
  • Drone simulation of delivering emergency goods – Grzegorz Trzeciak (Squadron)
  • Monitoring, understanding, and influencing the co-Spread of COVID-19 misinformation and fact-checks – Gregoire Burel (Open University)
• The multifaceted reality of the COVID-19 pandemic – social, economic and legal challenges – Polish 2nd National Scientific Conference (CBK)
• The aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis in Dutch nursing homes – Pitch by Lianne Cremers at the Dutch National Scientific Board in March 2022 (Vrije University Amsterdam)
• Novel organizational approaches and innovative uses of data in crisis management and humanitarian response – Keynote by Kees Boersma at the VU Faculty of Social Sciences in January 2022 (VU)
• Economic Impact of Supply Chain Disruptions during COVID-19 Pandemic – EURO-Hope 2021 (Hanken)
• Opening up after COVID-19: lessons learned from secondary schools and nursing homes – EURO-Hope 2021 (Vrije University Amsterdam)
• Best governance practices in the medical supply chain – EURO-Hope 2021 (Vrije University Amsterdam & Hanken)
• Alles in pyjama: scholieren over de corona pandemie – Presentations and art exhibition  by Lianne Cremers and Cato Janssen followed by a dialogue with stakeholders from two secondary schools, Lumion & Spinoza Lyceum (Amsterdam) in November 2021 (Vrije University Amsterdam)
• What are all these lines: Or how did we explain models to policy makers and how it went – Presentation for the Modeling & Simulation Discussion Group in November 2021 (TU Delft)
• Expert panel on Safety, Security and Societal Resilience at the Risk & Resilience Festival – Participation by Kees Boersma in November 2021 (Vrije University Amsterdam)
• How the turntables: Estimating spatiotemporal impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 in a large-scale artificial city. 17th International Conference on Urban Health & 7th International Conference on Computational Social Science (TU Delft). Also presented to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the Amsterdam local health authority (GGD) and Leiden University in August, September, and December 2021, respectively.
• Mitigating disruptions in PPE supply chains in pandemics – EURO 2021 – European Conference on Operational Research (Hanken)
• Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks 2021
  • Project overview – Prof. Gyöngyi Kovács (HUMLOG Institute – Hanken School of Economics)
  • Governance crisis modelling and policies during COVID-19 – Kees Boersma (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
  • Behavioural models in epidemics – Tina Comes (Technical University of Delft)
  • Supply chain management in pandemics – Gyöngyi Kovács
  • Social media analytics during COVID-19 – Harith Alani (Open University)

Tools & training

• ICU capacity data visualisation tool. 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. This tool is an example of how data can be processed to guide decision making by public authorities.

• Fact-Checking Observatory. The Fact-checking Observatory builds on research by the Knowledge Media Institute of The Open University carried out within European projects related to misinformation (HERoS and Co-Inform). It generates weekly automated reports about misinformation risk areas – including COVID-19 – and indicators about the effectiveness of fact-checking articles in reducing misinformation spread.

• ‘Logistics for Pandemic Response’ training module. HERoS partner Hanken School of Economics has developed a pandemic response training module as 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.