"Biological Enigma": mathematical modeling can overcome coronavirus

Andrey Zlobin, mathematician, cryptanalyst, candidate of technical sciences

The origins of the COVID-19 pandemic are crystal clear today. Published by Novaya Izvestia in 2015 in the prestigious scientific journal Nature excludes any doubts. They experimented with the coronavirus in the laboratory, and probably few people are interested in small nuances. Whether there was an accidental leak from the walls of a scientific institution or the virus was used as a biological weapon - all this is still fading into the background. Now it is important to stop the victorious march of infection around the world. Below is a brief overview of the theoretical research that is being conducted to counter dangerous scientific development.

It is quite obvious that scientists must fight against the coronavirus modified in the laboratory. To do this, it is necessary to understand all the patterns of the development of a pandemic and carefully, comprehensively study the virus itself. If at the initial stage analytical publications on COVID-19 did not appear often, now analytics is an avalanche of information. A huge part of this analytics includes research carried out by mathematical modeling methods.

A detailed acquaintance with the array of scientific articles allows you to highlight a wide range of issues studied using mathematical methods. Perhaps the most numerous group is made up of morbidity modeling. Most of these theoretical studies are based on the well-known differential mathematical model SIR (Susceptible, Infected, Recovered). The first letters of English words mean: S - the number of people susceptible to the disease, I - the number of infected, R - the number of recovered. Attention is drawn to the mass of results obtained using this model for different regions of the world, individual continents, countries, regions, cities. Offhand, one can name studies in Russia, the USA, China, Italy, Brazil, Iran, India, England, France, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Latin America and Africa. A certain standard of this approach makes it possible to analyze and predict morbidity from a unified methodological standpoint, which is convenient for comparison and generalization purposes.

At the same time, more developed mathematical models have appeared that allow one to study the effect of vaccination and treatment, age, marital status, isolation, lockdowns, social distance, traffic flows, the effect of asymptomatic cases, the importation of infection by migrants, and a decrease in the quality of medical care. A separate group is made up of theoretical studies of the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, for example, economic ones, including supply problems.

A large number of scientific organizations, universities, institutes, and laboratories are engaged in mathematical modeling of COVID-19 around the world. At the same time, articles are often published by numerous international teams of authors, which indicates the development of international cooperation and an intensive exchange of scientific information. In the public domain, you can see the relevant articles of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard Universities, Lomonosov Moscow State University and other well-known centers of science. Both in Russia and abroad, the pandemic is being studied using powerful supercomputer technology, although here the capabilities of domestic scientists are severely limited. Our country is about 100 times (!) Lagging behind the United States and China combined in terms of the number of top supercomputers.

Just the other day, a fresh work of Chinese specialists appeared on the risk of droplet infection with coronavirus. This meticulous mathematical simulation was performed on the world's most powerful supercomputer, Fugaku, using parallel computing techniques. Such a supercomputer is capable of performing more than 415 quadrillion computational operations per second and the study of COVID-19 on such enormous computing power undoubtedly contributes to a better understanding of the viral danger. Supercomputer technology also makes it possible to analyze the coronavirus in detail, literally at the atomic level.

This is how the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus model looks like.

Is there any hope that in the end mathematical methods will give a concrete result, and a cure for coronavirus will be found? This hope is also a reason for optimism can be the rapid development of a new science - bioinformatics.

Gradually comes the understanding that the structure and functioning of biological objects is somewhat akin to the laws of mathematical logic, cybernetics and programming. And the deeper bioinformatics reveals the structure and interconnections of the biological microcosm, the greater the likelihood of successful application of the achievements of artificial intelligence. Actually, already now, in the research of COVID-19, technologies of neural networks and machine learning are used. In essence, we are talking about breaking the code of the insidious virus and the pandemic in general, using the achievements of modern mathematics and cryptanalysis for this.

There are many examples of successful solutions to such problems. It was the hacking of the German Enigma cipher machine that allowed the mathematician Alan Turing to win the cipher war during World War II. The current level of technology is already sufficient to try to win the war against the coronavirus in a similar way. The problem is seen in one thing - computer technology and special mathematics for such a "war" costs fabulous money. A number of states have allocated huge financial resources for science a long time ago and already have the necessary computing and human resources to crack the "biological enigma". Russia in the field of supercomputers lags behind catastrophically, although we also have our own strong side - the world-famous mathematical schools.

Perhaps, the ingenuity of our mathematicians, known for original, unexpected solutions to even the most difficult problems, will contribute. Again, referring to the experience of Alan Turing, it comes to mind that he uses a kind of "hint" that the pedantic German military has missed. It is worth looking for similar clues in the case of the coronavirus. For example, noting the difficulties in the treatment of viral diseases, the American biologist Martynas Ichas wrote: "The fact is that the protein-synthesizing apparatus is a necessary part of the cell, and almost everything that suppresses the production of viral proteins by it also disrupts the vital activity of cells."

Humanity has no other way but to learn how to hack "biological enigmas". If the world is faced with an even more dangerous pandemic tomorrow, it may be too late.