Las matemáticas de la pandemia

Mathematics plays a prominent role in understanding pandemics and how to combat them; they help us prevent, predict and control them. In fact, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has filled the media with technical terms whose origin and correct interpretation are linked to mathematical concepts; For example, the SIR model, which emerged from the fight against malaria, predicts the evolution of infections using differential equations. For their part, the time series underpin the prediction, as well as the Markov processes that, from the present, anticipate the future. These instruments let us know in practice when the maximum number of infections will occur to alert hospitals or avoid trips and meetings, decide whether a vaccine will be useful or not, or know the rules of contagion and the construction of firebreaks to protect the citizenship.