Iâm convinced, what needs to happen for institutions such as the US HHS or European Commissionâs dg HERA to take on these initiatives? To what extent are they already?
I would suspect that one of the bottlenecks may be cheap and well-formulated plans. Good arguments can go far in policy, but I imagine success requires going from âWe need UVC/âVentilation in every hospitalâ to âTry this specific pilot scheme to test efficacyâ.
Which are the pandemic preparedness organizations working on getting wins around the world? If eg. Denmark adopts Far-UVC and it is a smash success, it becomes a lot easier to advocate for elsewhere. My impression is that many of the EA organizations doing advocacy, mostly are doing it at the broader level of âwe need better biosecurityâ rather than proposing and pushing for very specific plans. Is my impression correct, or am I just not sufficiently familiar with the field?
Great questionsâmy colleagues and I (at 1Day Sooner) have actually spoken to representatives from HERA and BARDA (which is under HHS) who are very interested in the potential of far-UVC. What weâve seen is that policymakers are genuinely concerned about the effectiveness and safety of widespread far-UVC use, and want to see greater research in the field, without necessarily being able to guarantee that funding themselves. We, and other organizations, have been advocating for and trying to organize research and pilot programs. (I donât have a good sense of the international advocacy field around pandemic prep, though; most of our partners are based in the US.) I think that generally advocacy has actually been fairly specific, or at least been targeted at understanding specific concerns from policymakers, but itâs not surprising that this doesnât necessarily come across at a glance. The more detailed and specific the plan, the more technical it gets and the more itâs being communicated person-to-person or through gigantic reports. Our report does contain specific recommendations in the âBottlenecks and Funding Opportunitiesâ section if youâd like to check it out!
We (the biosecurity team at Convergent Research) also have curated a number of specific, tarmac-ready far-UVC projects with teams and timelines attached, that range from a few 100k to a few million and address various bottlenecks in far-UVC adoption. Weâve got a whole catalogue of 1-pagers if any funders reading this are interested :P
I think I have a slightly different read on USGOVâs interest in far-UVC than Gavriel does. ~Every agency weâve spoken to so far has gone âcool, but not our problem,â which I understand to mean that far-UVC is not being prioritized even within the already-deprioritized category of pandemic funding. Hell, even NIAID isnât interested. This might change, of course...but no real idea of what might be a turning point. That being said, the CDC doesnât seem actively unfriendly to the tech, so there is hope?
Iâm convinced, what needs to happen for institutions such as the US HHS or European Commissionâs dg HERA to take on these initiatives? To what extent are they already?
I would suspect that one of the bottlenecks may be cheap and well-formulated plans. Good arguments can go far in policy, but I imagine success requires going from âWe need UVC/âVentilation in every hospitalâ to âTry this specific pilot scheme to test efficacyâ.
Which are the pandemic preparedness organizations working on getting wins around the world? If eg. Denmark adopts Far-UVC and it is a smash success, it becomes a lot easier to advocate for elsewhere. My impression is that many of the EA organizations doing advocacy, mostly are doing it at the broader level of âwe need better biosecurityâ rather than proposing and pushing for very specific plans. Is my impression correct, or am I just not sufficiently familiar with the field?
Great questionsâmy colleagues and I (at 1Day Sooner) have actually spoken to representatives from HERA and BARDA (which is under HHS) who are very interested in the potential of far-UVC. What weâve seen is that policymakers are genuinely concerned about the effectiveness and safety of widespread far-UVC use, and want to see greater research in the field, without necessarily being able to guarantee that funding themselves. We, and other organizations, have been advocating for and trying to organize research and pilot programs. (I donât have a good sense of the international advocacy field around pandemic prep, though; most of our partners are based in the US.) I think that generally advocacy has actually been fairly specific, or at least been targeted at understanding specific concerns from policymakers, but itâs not surprising that this doesnât necessarily come across at a glance. The more detailed and specific the plan, the more technical it gets and the more itâs being communicated person-to-person or through gigantic reports. Our report does contain specific recommendations in the âBottlenecks and Funding Opportunitiesâ section if youâd like to check it out!
We (the biosecurity team at Convergent Research) also have curated a number of specific, tarmac-ready far-UVC projects with teams and timelines attached, that range from a few 100k to a few million and address various bottlenecks in far-UVC adoption. Weâve got a whole catalogue of 1-pagers if any funders reading this are interested :P
I think I have a slightly different read on USGOVâs interest in far-UVC than Gavriel does. ~Every agency weâve spoken to so far has gone âcool, but not our problem,â which I understand to mean that far-UVC is not being prioritized even within the already-deprioritized category of pandemic funding. Hell, even NIAID isnât interested. This might change, of course...but no real idea of what might be a turning point. That being said, the CDC doesnât seem actively unfriendly to the tech, so there is hope?