Dablander, Pichler, Cika, & Bacilieri (2020)

Critical slowing down

  • Early warning signals have been proposed as a tool to anticipate transitions in many fields
    • Ecology (e.g., Carpenter et al., 2011, Dakos et al. 2015)
    • Psychology (e.g., van Leemput et al., 2014; Wichers et al., 2020)
    • Climate science (e.g., Lenton et al., 2011; Rosier et al., 2021)
    • Epidemiology (e.g., O’Reagan & Drake, 2013; Brett et al., 2020)
Wissel (1984); Scheffer et al. (2009)

Abbott et al. (2020); Gostic et al. (2020)

Abbott et al. (2020); Gostic et al. (2020)

Dakos et al. (2012); Brett et al. (2018)

Conclusion

  • Indicators did not reliably rise prior to the \(2^{nd}\) COVID-19 wave
    • In fact, they tended to decrease rather than increase
    • This is due to the persistent transient of the first wave
    • Time scale separation is important in practical applications!

  • Even if indicators would reliably rise, many practical challenges remain
  • For details, see Dablander, Heesterbeek, Borsboom, & Drake (2021)

Conclusion

  • Indicators did not reliably rise prior to the \(2^{nd}\) COVID-19 wave
    • In fact, they tended to decrease rather than increase
    • This is due to the persistent transient of the first wave
    • Time scale separation is important in practical applications!

  • Even if indicators would reliably rise, many practical challenges remain

  • For details, see Dablander, Heesterbeek, Borsboom, & Drake (2021)

    Thank you!