This work describes an approach to support evidence-based public health decisions and policy, which may help inform other responses to similar outbreak events.

Rapid roll-out of vaccination is particularly critical to controlling Malaysia’s epidemic, with continuing NPIs likely to be needed throughout much of the roll-out period.

Pandemic responses across the world have been highly reactive. However, there remain only three strategic options to managing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): mitigation, suppression and elimination

The improvement in Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 cases could be well captured in our transmission model through a combination of time-varying processes that included: testing rates, population mobility, use of face coverings, and physical distancing.

COVID-19 dynamics in the Philippines are driven by age, contact structure, mobility, and Minimum Health Standards (MHS) adherence. Continued compliance with low-cost MHS should help the Philippines control the epidemic until vaccines are widely distributed, but disease resurgence may be occurring due to a combination of low population immunity and detection rates and new variants of concern.

In order to identify appropriate responses to a pandemic, governments should adopt a consequentialist approach with the aim of reducing the disease burden to an acceptable level of harm.

Demographic, epidemiological, and socioeconomic factors will likely result in differential impacts of COVID-19 on low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and other vulnerable groups compared with high resource settings.

In general, models have played an important role in policy development to address the COVID-19 outbreak from its emergence in China to the current global pandemic.