Thanks to ESR 6 (Aigars Langins) interest in the mathematics of pandemic dynamics, including differential equations, and a mutual interest with an epidemiologist Ņikita Trojanskis, a recent graduate of the University of Cambridge, a data driven prediction of pandemic dynamics in Latvia was introduced, mostly developed by Ņikita and Aigars, and used by the Ministry of Health to argue on political decisions to be taken by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia.
This included a political decision of announcing a statewide lockdown of 3 weeks in Autumn 2021, which broke the Covid-19 Delta variant transmission and decreased the number of casualties and hospital overload. About this several media reports are given, including articles in Journal IR (https://ir.lv/2021/10/13/cik-laut-nomirt/ , https://ir.lv/2021/12/23/nikita-trojanskis-ir-divaina-krizes-komunikacija-no-valsts-puses/), an online meeting with the President of Latvia, Egils Levits (https://www.president.lv/en/article/president-latvia-we-are-grateful-latvian-experts-developing-evidence-based-covid-19-spread-and-containment-impact-forecasting-model). This showed how important and impactful can be a scientific training in promoting data driven policy.