Operational research in the time of COVID-19: The ‘science for better’ or worse in the absence of hard data¹

Abstract

How can policymakers and planners make informed decisions during a pandemic? What kind of (big) data are needed, and who and when is supposed to provide these? With the Operational Research community unable to get hold of reliable hard data – especially during the pandemic, the solutions promoted from analytics seem questionable. We may have to employ instead auxiliary data from social media and rapid market surveys.

Keywords:

• Operational research
• crisis
• COVID-19
• hard data
• auxiliary data

Notes

1 To that end the team of authors is prepared to take a lead on this and send an open invitation to others who may be willing to contribute and bid for a respective RCUK grant to support the initiative.

2 https://hbr.org/2020/04/we-need-a-stress-test-for-critical-supply-chains

3 Data from https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases.

4 Figure ‘Sales of Dairy Products and Fruits and Vegetables Rise in March’ in (last access 31 May 2020). https://www.criteo.com/insights/coronavirus-consumer-trends/

5 https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-research-reports/pasta-product-manufacturing-industry/

6 https://www.ft.com/content/e5e60434-6de7-11ea-89df-41bea055720b