Using System Dynamics to Teach and Learn about COVID 19
This Webinar is free due to the generous contribution of the University at Albany and California State University, Chico
The COVID Pandemic constituted a dynamic and complex problem challenging leaders and managers to design policies facing difficult questions such as:
- Do we still need to wear masks?
- Should the government mandate wearing masks?
- What happens if everyone does (or does not) get vaccinated?
- When will the next surge happen?
- How do we know if the pandemic is over?
Systems thinking and simulation provide tools and methods to explore these important questions with a variety of audiences. Learn how a team of experts is using System Dynamics to help different audiences to answer these questions:
- Using a case-based System Dynamics simulation to explore policy choices in an undergraduate public policy capstone course.
- Using a set of self-paced learning modules to build a simulation model from the ground up.
Ali N. Mashayekhi is a retired professor of management from the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran where he taught System Dynamics and strategic management. He received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Sharif University and his Ph.D. in System Dynamics from MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts.
Babak Bahaddin works as an associate consultant at isee systems. Babak holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Sharif University of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Information Science, from the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Daniel Gordon trained in System Dynamics at Rockefeller College, the State University of New York at Albany. He is retired from the New York State Health Department, where he spent 34 years working in health care policy analysis and HIV epidemiology.
David Andersen is Professor Emeritus in Public Administration and Information Science at the University at Albany – SUNY. He is a former President and Vice President for Finance for the System Dynamics Society as well as a winner of the Forrester Award.
Hyunjung Kim is a professor of management at California State University, Chico. She teaches strategy and management courses using system dynamics. She received her Ph.D. in Public Administration from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany.
“Management of Systemic Risk, Illustrated by the Covid Pandemic” by Jose Julio Gonzalez
Jose Julio Gonzalez (Agder University, Norway) will present “Management of Systemic Risk, Illustrated by the Covid Pandemic” on Thursday, 20 January 2022. The talk will be in German and is organised by the German Chapter of the System Dynamics Society (DGSD). If you are interested in the Zoom link, please send an email to kommunikation@systemdynamics.de.
Online-Vortrag „Management von systemischem Risiko, illustriert an der COVID-Pandemie“
Am Donnerstag, 20.01.2022, 16:00 Uhr hält Prof. José Gonzalez, Agder University (Norwegen) einen Zoom-Vortrag zum Thema „Management von systemischem Risiko, illustriert an der COVID-Pandemie“. José ist langjähriges Mitglied der System Dynamics Society und beschäftigt sich seit langem mit systemischem Risikomanagement, sowohl mit System Dynamics als auch mit anderen Methoden des Systemdenkens. Organisiert wird der Vortrag vom Arbeitskreis „Nachhaltigkeitstransformation“, steht aber allen Mitgliedern der DGSD offen. Bei Interesse am Zoom-Link bitte den Arbeitskreis kontaktieren oder kommunikation@systemdynamics.de.
Behavioral Dynamics of COVID-19
Behavioral Dynamics of COVID-19
Over a year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, its true global magnitude remains unknown. Official counts of cases and deaths are known to underestimate the true magnitude of the pandemic, but how much remains uncertain. Differences in testing and treatment capacity, unknowns like asymptomatic transmission, and most importantly, variable responses to the risk of the virus create wide variation in incidence, prevalence, and mortality across countries and over time. This isn’t just about getting the stats right. If official counts of cases and deaths are too low, people may not take adequate precautions and governments may (and have) re-opened their economies too soon, leading to more deaths. Effective responses to the pandemic require an understanding of how these factors interact to shape its trajectory.
To address this need, we developed a model that accounts for behavioral factors such as risk-driven contact reduction, improved treatment, and adherence fatigue, as well as asymptomatic transmission, impacts of weather, disease acuity, and testing and hospital capacity. Estimating this model across all nations that publish sufficient data—a total of 92, spanning about 5 billion people —we found the actual magnitude of the epidemic to be much larger than reported. Specifically, as of the end of 2020, we find cumulative cases were more than seven times larger than official reports, and COVID-19 deaths were about 44% higher than reported. We also found huge variation in death rates, with some countries having over 100 times the per capita deaths of others.
The greatest driver of this wide variation is not demographics, weather, or health care capacity, but rather how responsive are the people and governments of each nation to the threat. Do countries act proactively and aggressively to quash any nascent outbreaks, or do they wait until the situation is severe and hospitals overwhelmed before responding?
Some countries, like Australia, China, New Zealand, and Singapore, have been proactive, responding aggressively to even small spikes in cases, and have largely succeeded in bringing their epidemics under control at death rates below 0.1 per million people per day. Even after caseloads and deaths fell, they remained vigilant, kept masks on and gatherings restricted, and continued testing and tracing until the virus was almost completely stamped out. Despite occasional disruptions from new outbreaks, life in these nations has largely stabilized at a new normal, with few cases and deaths.
Others, including the U.S., many European and South American countries, and India, have been more reactive. Seeking to minimize economic disruption, they delayed action until climbing deaths forced their hands. As each wave subsided, under pressure to reopen their economies, they eased restrictions, only to see cases climbing again. Eventually, faced with rapidly growing outbreaks, they have been forced to lock down again anyway.
Ultimately, countries actually have little choice in how much they must reduce contact levels to control the epidemic. Few communities are willing to tolerate unchecked outbreaks and the horrendous number of deaths that result. By choice or the force of intolerable death rates, all countries have to cut back high-risk interactions – keeping people at home, restricting gatherings, avoiding restaurants and travel, and so on – to control the virus. How much these interactions have to be reduced to keep an outbreak from growing depends largely on the contagiousness of the virus itself, and thus remains similar across nations. What varies across countries is how many cases and deaths it takes to induce strong enough actions to reduce contacts to the required threshold, https://buckfirelaw.com/xanax-alprazolam/ bend the curve, and stop the growing outbreak. In short, until vaccination is widespread all communities pay a similar price to sufficiently bring down their contacts, yet the more responsive ones save many more lives.
To help policymakers and the public better understand these dynamics, we created a free online simulator that allows you to experiment with your own scenarios for vaccination and other policies, and to explore how to change the course of the epidemic over the coming months.
The world is working hard to roll out mass vaccination, but it will still be many months before most people are vaccinated worldwide. Understanding the central role of responsiveness in shaping the dynamics of outbreaks remains critical – it is still not too late for a swift response to both minimize economic disruptions and save lives.
Rahmandad, Lim, and Sterman are coauthors of “Behavioral dynamics of COVID-19: estimating under-reporting, multiple waves, and adherence fatigue across 19 nations,” which is forthcoming in System Dynamic Review. Rahmandad and Lim are coauthors of “Risk-Driven Responses to COVID-19 Eliminate the Tradeoff between Lives and Livelihoods.”
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Collaborative and Competing Supply Chain Scenario Planning
Presenter: Professor Nitin R. Joglekar
Title: Collaborative and Competing Supply Chain Scenario Planning
Abstract: Scenario planning is an approach used to prepare for just-in-case futures. Disruptions such as BREXIT and the pandemic have shortened the planning horizons, heightened the need for leveraging data, and brought in digital collaboration/ distanced work as three key elements of just-in-case supply chain configuration planning (Joglekar and Phadnis, SMR 2020; Phadnis and Joglekar, POM 2021). In addition to such collaborative planning, we also see specters of completing policy regimen, such as deglobalization trends, affecting supply chain planning scenarios (Srai, Tsolakis and Joglekar, 2020). We draw upon evidence from pandemics and widespread farmer protests in India to conduct system dynamics studies of underlying planning challenges. We then identify potential research opportunities — empirical, behavioral, and analytical – that are associated with emergent field of just-in-case supply chain scenario planning.
References:
- Joglekar, N., & S. Phadnis (2020) Accelerating Supply Chain Scenario Planning (Attached)
- Phadnis, S., & Joglekar, N. (2021). Configuring Supply Chain Dyads for Regulatory Disruptions: A Behavioral Study of Scenarios. Production and Operations Management forthcoming https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/poms.13290
- Srai, J. S., Tsolakis, N., & Joglekar, N. (2020). Interplay between Competing Policy Regimen in Supply Networks. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745731
Bio:
Professor Nitin Joglekar is on faculty at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. He has been a department editor for industry studies and public policy at the Production & Operations Management Journal (POM). He is currently serving as an expert on advanced manufacturing and digital supply chains for Global Futures Council at the World Economic Forum. He is also serving as a co-editor for POM’s upgoing special issue on pandemics. Home Page: https://people.bu.edu/joglekar/
Group Model Building Online: Experiences and Insights Seminar
All Seminar Series Webinars are free for System Dynamics Society members. Join or Renew today and unlock all membership benefits.
11 am New York | 4 pm London | 12 am Beijing
When COVID-19 hit almost a year ago, we, a group of researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway, decided to take the leap and run a planned in-person Group Model Building workshop online on fairly short notice. Encouraged by the positive outcomes of this initial event, we have since experimented with several more online activities. In this seminar, we will share our experiences so far, demonstrate some of the online tools and templates that we have been developing, and exchange tips and tricks with seminar participants.
Seminars are free for 2021 System Dynamics Society Members and Subscribers. Join or Renew today to unlock all benefits.
Make sure you log in to get the discount.

Anaely Aguiar

Birgit Kopainsky

Brooke Wilkerson

Christina Gkini

Lars-Kristian Trellevik
Group Model Building Online: Experiences and Insights
All Seminar Series Webinars are free for System Dynamics Society members. Join or Renew today and unlock all membership benefits.
11 am New York | 4 pm London | 12 am Beijing
Birgit Kopainsky | Anaely Aguiar | Brooke Wilkerson | Christina Gkini | Lars-Kristian Lunde Trellevik
When COVID-19 hit almost a year ago, we, a group of researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway, decided to take the leap and run a planned in-person Group Model Building workshop online on fairly short notice. Encouraged by the positive outcomes of this initial event, we have since experimented with several more online activities. In this seminar, we will share our experiences so far, demonstrate some of the online tools and templates that we have been developing, and exchange tips and tricks with seminar participants.
Seminars are free for 2021 System Dynamics Society Members and Subscribers. Join or Renew today to unlock all benefits.
Make sure you log in to get the discount.
Local Level COVID Models: Bringing Youth to the Table
11 am New York | 4 pm London | 12 am Beijing
Across the world, citizens are being told what to do about Coronavirus by experts and politicians, with no understanding of what is happening or what is best to do around them. And those conditions can be highly localized, with infection and death rates differing by multiples just across the street. Young people, in particular, are disenfranchised by this approach, even though they play a key role in the pandemic. This webinar describes an accessible COVID model that can be readily localized to any specific area – large or small. It will describe unique findings – generated by young people with no prior experience – for Delhi, distinct parts of Mumbai, London, and New York/Bronx. It will conclude with wider implications for localizing System Dynamics models and for youth-engagement.
About the presenters:
Maurice Glucksman is currently Co-Lead Architect, The COVID 19 Localisation Modelling Group he founded with Dr. Kim Warren in March 2020 aiming to democratize COVID 19 modeling with an emphasis on quantifying and managing risk in local areas to especially help young people become confident advocates for risk assessment positive policy change in the pandemic. He is now also an active investor and was Director of Research for Hamilton Ventures a Merchant Bank and Stockbroker Strenuus Capital. He also was a leader of the Business Dynamics group at McKinsey & Co a consultant with Pugh Roberts Associates and practiced Naval Architecture for 3 years between Business and Engineering degrees at MIT and the University of Michigan.
Kim Warren is the co-founder and director of Strategy Dynamics and former president of the System Dynamics Society. He’s an experienced strategy professional, teacher, and publisher of online courses and resources on business modeling. He held senior strategy roles in several industries, from petrochemical to brewing. He taught at the London Business School on MBA and Executive programs for long years and developed the powerful strategy dynamics frameworks for designing and managing enterprise strategy. Kim’s work on modeling business plans and issues has spanned cases in several businesses across the world. He’s the author of the prize-winning Competitive Strategy Dynamics and teaches at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Farrah Farnejad is a student at Queen Mary University of London who won the COVID 19 Youth Modelling Competition and has developed a model of the borough of Westminster and wrote an article with the COVID 19 Localisation Modelling Group on the impact of the new Covid 19 mutation.
Quinn Kennedy is a high School Student at Fordham Prep in the Bronx, who worked to estimate the likelihood of herd immunity in the boroughs of New York City and was an active contributor to an early analysis of herd immunity in New York City last summer and helped the COVID 19 Localisation Modelling Group to develop its course.
Harshita Magroria is a student at the University of Mumbai who led a team of 5 other students to study the outbreak in L Ward and discover the key differences between the slum and non-slum areas
Brahmani Nutakki a student at the University of Hyderabad who is the winner of a hackathon based on her work to automate predictive models of COVID 19 She led a similar effort to study Delhi and accurately predicted that the city would experience a surge in infections at the present moment.
About the COVID 19 Localisation Modelling Group:
The COVID 19 Localisation Modelling Group was founded and collaborates with a group of 100+ volunteers to support teams working on COVID localized models globally. The group also offers a free COVID 19 Localisation Modelling Course.
Modeling Covid-19: A Panel Discussion
@ 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM EST (New York)
@ 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM GMT (London)
@ 12:00 AM – 1:30 AM CST (Beijing)
Join host Mohammad Jalali (Harvard University) for a panel discussion about COVID-19 modeling. Panelists Jeroen Struben (emlyon business school), Hazhir Rahmandad (MIT Sloan), Jack Homer (Homer Consulting), and Navid Ghaffarzadegan (Virginia Tech) will then share their work in 10-minute presentations. This will be followed by discussion and Q&A which explores the question of what makes a COVID-19 model useful.