News

Researchers have developed a new model to help authorities determine which sector of the population should get COVID-19 vaccination first.

If a vaccine becomes available in January 2021 or shortly after, it should be given to people 60 years old and older first, since they have the highest death rate from COVID-19. According to the model, if the vaccine becomes available in the summer of 2021, the priority group changes.

Read the full press release.

The Ontario government contributed $148,000 for Chris Bauch’s research project, “How to Re-open Ontario's Economy Without Causing a Resurgence of COVID-19”. Bauch and his team will combine data from various sources to create a mathematical model of COVID-19 transmission to identify strategies to re-open the province without causing a second wave and--if necessary--how to re-close schools and workplaces in the face of a second wave while minimizing economic impacts.

University of Waterloo’s Department of Applied Mathematics professor Marek Stastna will serve as President of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS). Stastna, a member of the water institute, will lead this important organization that promotes meteorology and oceanography in Canada and serves the interests of meteorologists, climatologists, oceanographers, and limnologists hydrologists, and cryospheric scientists.

A new study has found that allowing cities and counties to open and close independently based on standardized guidelines is the quickest and safest way of restoring the Canadian economy. 

The study found that opening workplaces and schools on a county-by-county basis when the county falls below 4.5 active COVID-19 cases per 100,000 would result in 38 per cent fewer person-days of closure.

Waterloo’s Department of Applied Mathematics PhD candidate James Petrie is among a group of volunteers who have combined their knowledge to develop Covid Watch, an app that uses Bluetooth to detect when users are in proximity to each other and alerts them anonymously if they were in contact with someone later confirmed to have COVID-19.

Yinan Li (PhD ‘19) wis one of two students to take home the coveted Huawei Prize for Best Research paper by a Mathematics Graduate Student. The $4,000 award recognizes the impact of Li’s novel approach to controlling the cyber-physical systems that play an increasingly visible role in modern life through technologies like unmanned air vehicles, autonomous cars, and surgical robots.

Five University of Waterloo students have teamed up with Google to develop software to accelerate machine learning using quantum science.

The collaborative effort resulted in the creation of an open-source hybrid quantum-classical machine learning software platform, called TensorFlow Quantum. 

Researchers have found a new way to use math to better treat cancer and prevent its relapse.

Using the first mathematical model of its kind, researchers at the University of Waterloo found a way to study the interactions between the immune system and different types of cancer cells.

Using their new model, the researchers found that administering different cancer therapies in a particular sequence could better target cancer stem cells in tumours, potentially leading to more personalized treatments for cancer patients.