A research team led by Professor Shi Wen-zhong, Director of PolyU’s Smart Cities Research Institute (SCRI), recently made a 7-day prediction on the risk of the spatiotemporal spread of Omicron in Hong Kong, making use of the “extended Weighted Kernel Density model”. The team has been using big data of the city, such as the locations of patients, time of their diagnosis and development of symptoms, population mobility, vaccination rate, and social distance index to figure out high-risk areas in a specific period of time.

According to Prof. Shi, his team had applied the model to study the Omicron spread in South Africa in late November, and proved that the predictions of the Omicron spread among the nine provinces were accurate.

In the latest research, Prof. Shi found that people had travelled less since the beginning of 2022, which had helped slow down the spread of COVID-19.

He hoped that the government would refer to the research findings and take necessary actions as early as possible. He suggested that the government should put more efforts into supporting the high-risk areas identified, such as strengthening vaccination and testing resources, while the public should also consider reducing travel to those areas unless necessary.

To learn more about Prof. Shi and SCRI’s prediction of the Omicron onset risk, please visit here.