ABSTRACT
The sufficient and responsible supply of mineral resources at fair market conditions is an essential basis for Austria's economic development. Although the geological availability of raw materials is relatively high, disruptions due to geopolitical, economic, or circumstances such as pandemics or natural disasters can lead to a shortage of mineral resources. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic relentlessly shows the vulnerability in a globalised world with complex dependencies and widely ramified value chains. It reveals questions about the security of supply not only for products of daily use but also for basic materials that are urgently needed for the processing industry. The transformation of energy systems, mobility, and the decarbonisation of industry is closely linked to the availability of mineral raw materials. The Master Plan Raw Materials 2030 proposes solutions to respond to the challenges of this decade and to ensure Austria's secure supply of primary and secondary mineral raw materials from Austria and abroad. With a comprehensive package of measures, the Master Plan lays the foundation for Austria's resilient development.
ABSTRACT
We provide a non-autonomous mathematical model to describe some of the most relevant parameters associated to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as daily and cumulative deaths, active cases, and cumulative incidence, among others. We will take into consideration the ways in which people from four different age ranges react to the virus. Using an appropriate transmission function, we estimate the impact of the third surge of COVID-19 in Italy. Also, we assess two different vaccination programmes. In one of them, a single shot is administered to all citizens over 16 years old before second shots are available. In the second model, first and second shots are administered to each citizen within, approximately, 20 days of time-gap.