On 12 March 2022, Dr Kay Lo lp gave an online lecture on "The Flu Seasons and the Missing Data: A Matched-Pair Analysis Northern and Southern Hemispheres 2021-2022 and Hong Kong, China 2004-2009" to UIC students and faculty. He presented the trends and characteristics of different influenza viruses based on the data he collected.

Dr. lp is a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Manitoba, who worked at the Hong Kong Baptist Hospital from 1972 to 2008. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians and the Edinburgh College, has been a clinical lecturer at UBC Medical School and a clinical instructor in the Department of General Medicine at UBC, and was a clinical trainee supervisor in Richmond and Langley, BC. Dr. lp has taken several statistics courses at the Hong Kong Baptist University out of his interests in statistics. He has been collecting and studying the developmental characteristics of different influenza viruses since the SARS era and is currently working on a book entitled "Influenza Seasons and Missing Data. Let's Do the Math".

Dr. lp started his lecture with a brief overview of the background, methodology and results of the study.

Regional maps

Dr. lp listed the comparison of z-values before and after missing data for different regional plates, and then compared the changes in excess mortality caused by B, H1N1, and H3N2 during 2002-2009, and then analysed the trends of all three variants year by year.

Z-value images

Dr. lp showed images of z-value changes in H3, H1, and B variants the before-and-after missing data after weekly updates for the US and Canada. He also compared general match-pair behaviour and specific match-pair behaviour between 2x2 and 4x4 tables for different countries and panels. Finally it is shown that all three influenza A(H1), A(H3) and B collapsed into the same pattern from week 3 onwards to week 14. These images visually represent the changes and trends of each influenza virus.

Question and answer

After the lecture, Dr. lp patiently answered questions from the students and faculty. He introduced the resource of data and welcomed UIC students and faculty to use them in their own research to produce more outstanding topics in the field of statistics.

Group photo of Dr. Yip and UIC teachers

Reporter: Qianqian Lu

Photographer: Qianqian Lu

Editors: Ms. Garbo Hu and Ms. Guoqiu Zhang