The Hungarian COVID-19 Mathematical Modelling and Epidemiological Analysis Task Force (aka “epimath team”) was assembled in the early phase of the pandemic in March 2020, to provide in-depth epidemiological situation reports, forecasting, and scenario analysis to support evidence informed decision making during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is a multidisciplinary team of specialists from many institutions across the country, including mathematicians, medical doctors, epidemiologists, statisticians, network scientists, system biologists, public health experts, computer scientists and mathematical social scientists.

Our aim was to integrate a wide range of competencies to tackle the complex public health, economical and societal challenges posed by the pandemic. This was an innovative initiative in Hungary, and in this talk we summarize how this team has worked and what has been achieved in the past years, regarding policy advisory and scientific research.

Several specific examples will highlight the predictive value of this work in different pandemic waves, to illustrate how the task force contributed to the fight against SARS-COV-2.

Finally, we talk about the transformation of the task force into the National Laboratory for Health Security, and the Canadian roots of our team.