Po-Shen Loh – $100,000, with an expected reimbursement of up to $100,000
Awesome! I think NOVID is a really clever idea, and I’m excited to see it getting funding.
One concern I have about the value proposition, which I didn’t see addressed here: It seems that this funding might be coming too late in the pandemic to be useful? It seems that NOVID will only really help in future pandemics if it clearly demonstrates value now. But as far as I’m aware, it’s mainly being developed and deployed in the US, which seems to be most of the way to herd immunity. So it seems plausible that there won’t be enough transmission for NOVID to really demonstrate value.
Thanks for raising this. I think we communicated the grant decision to Po-Shen in late March/early April, when the pandemic was still significantly more active in the US. I was viewing this as “last chance to trial this idea”, and I think I still stand by that given what we knew at the time, although I’d be less excited by this with the benefit of hindsight (the pandemic has developed roughly along my median expectations, but that still means I put significant credence on case rates being much higher than they currently are.)
In general our grant write-ups will appear at least a few weeks after the grant decision has actually been communicated to the grantee, as CEA needs to conduct due dilligence, we need to draft the write-up, have the write-up reviewed by the grantee, etc. For time-sensitive grants, the lag between making the grant and writing-up can be longer.
I’ll also plug that the LTFF is one of the few funders that are able to make grants on short notice, so people with similarly ephemeral opportunities in the future should feel free to apply to us, there’s an option in the application to flag it as time-sensitive.
Yes, agreed. My argument is that if cases are sufficiently low in the US, then deploying it now won’t get much data, and the app likely won’t get much uptake
Some more points here: 1. Hopefully COVID will stop being an issue in the US (fingers crossed), but I can’t be completely sure. It’s possible new strains will emerge that the current vaccines won’t work against, for example.
2. I think there are possibilities of using NOVID in other countries, but I can’t say more.
Awesome! I think NOVID is a really clever idea, and I’m excited to see it getting funding.
One concern I have about the value proposition, which I didn’t see addressed here: It seems that this funding might be coming too late in the pandemic to be useful? It seems that NOVID will only really help in future pandemics if it clearly demonstrates value now. But as far as I’m aware, it’s mainly being developed and deployed in the US, which seems to be most of the way to herd immunity. So it seems plausible that there won’t be enough transmission for NOVID to really demonstrate value.
Thanks for raising this. I think we communicated the grant decision to Po-Shen in late March/early April, when the pandemic was still significantly more active in the US. I was viewing this as “last chance to trial this idea”, and I think I still stand by that given what we knew at the time, although I’d be less excited by this with the benefit of hindsight (the pandemic has developed roughly along my median expectations, but that still means I put significant credence on case rates being much higher than they currently are.)
In general our grant write-ups will appear at least a few weeks after the grant decision has actually been communicated to the grantee, as CEA needs to conduct due dilligence, we need to draft the write-up, have the write-up reviewed by the grantee, etc. For time-sensitive grants, the lag between making the grant and writing-up can be longer.
I’ll also plug that the LTFF is one of the few funders that are able to make grants on short notice, so people with similarly ephemeral opportunities in the future should feel free to apply to us, there’s an option in the application to flag it as time-sensitive.
One argument for it is that by being deployed and studied now, we can prove the general technique in time for the next pandemic.
Yes, agreed. My argument is that if cases are sufficiently low in the US, then deploying it now won’t get much data, and the app likely won’t get much uptake
Some more points here:
1. Hopefully COVID will stop being an issue in the US (fingers crossed), but I can’t be completely sure. It’s possible new strains will emerge that the current vaccines won’t work against, for example.
2. I think there are possibilities of using NOVID in other countries, but I can’t say more.