The Mathematics Behind the Corona News Coverage

Our director Felix Otto and Professor Silvia Schöneburg-Lehnert (Mathematical Institute, Leipzig University) have started a short video series (in German) with the aim of providing a basic introduction for some mathematical terminology that comes up in the news coverage regarding Corona.

The following concepts are explained in the series:

• exponential growth and doubling time
• basic reproduction number
• effective reproduction number
• transmission probabilities
• chain of infection
• flatten the curve
• second wave
• impact of quarantine restrictions
• herd immunity
• infectiousness: parameters from observations
• estimation of the effective reproduction number

The playlist containing all videos in embedded below, alternatively you can watch it on our YouTube channel.