1) its still fairly early to know how big a problem this is (and I have heard or read expert opinions on both sides—some say it may be a big problem, while others say it most likely is not)
2) using the EA INT ( Impact-Neglectedness—Tractability) framework (though some use SNT (U) where S= scale=Impact and (U) is ‘urgency’ (a time discounting or triage factor ---i.e. there’s no point in setting up a research program to find a cure if it is going to arrive too late ) I am not sure this issue is Neglected. (I think US govt just allocated 1⁄2 billion$ to work on this).
there are also already many people—epidimiologists, virologists, health care workers, and health management people ---working on this (internationally). Of course that doesn’t mean they couldn’t use some help, or that what they are doing is the most ‘effective’.
I wouldn’t dismiss what these professional people are doing (health departments, CDC, etc.) as innefective or in need of help or input than I would dismiss the efforts of the fire department for fires around here and just try to put the fire myself. But, its possible they could use help (even in a variety of ways—average people can just call the fire dept if they can’t put a fire out, and help any people displaced by the fire.)
3) I have already seen a few theoretical epidemiological papers on this subject. https://infomullet.com has one which is not peer reviewed and less theoretical (its more a ‘fermi ’ or ‘back of an envelope’ set of calculations (though done on a computer ) than a fully fledged theoretical model. (I think its based on the standard SIR model in epidemiology , or an updated , more complex modification of that).
If one is doing a theoretical model , I think one has to try to review what people are doing or have done , though one can at the same time develop your own models and compare—there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. (While I have done a little labwork as an undergrad, and studied some molecular biology, I am not a ‘wet lab worker’, so I would be unable to judge anything regarding possible vaccines except from a theoretical POV—and I’m very limited even at that . )
4) My view is, if this turns out to be a big problem, the real thing is to deal with ‘population heterogeneity’ . I gather China took this route—they sort of have quarantined entire cities, and have shut down transportation and trade routes . Also, within these cities, they have sort of quarantined subsections of the cities, homes and businesses . (So you have quarantines within quarantines.) (I imagine most people on this forum know that).
This is a preventetive intervention—no different than containing a wildfire (such as the ones that destroyed many homes and lives in California not long ago).
In lieu of a cure, thats the way to go. Just try to keep the problem localized.
In USA, CDC and others are already doing that.
It may be useful if people had an ‘app’ to know how close and where the virus (or fire) is—no different than an app for checking the weather.
Also, perhaps an ‘app’ which is a ‘checklist’ of things you should have at home, carry with you, and also where to go if there is a problem (health facility, or authorities who can tell you where to go if you need help—eg you know someone who i sick).
Also an ‘app’ which has a list of things you need to do to prepare for a case in which you lose electricity and internet service.
5) As an aside i’m sort of working (possibly with someone else though the project is in its infancy so we haven’t agreed on exactly what the project is or what form it takes—we each have our own closely related but distinct approaches—so we are just seeing if collaboration is possible ) . Both of us are more theoretically oriented but want a ‘fermi type’ solution—something that could be widely useful and applicable, rather than buried in an academic journal written in language noone without a PhD can understand.
It was not oriented towards the corona virus—its a general formalism—but could be applicable to that issue as well. (The idea is really like creating a very small and short ‘manual’ or handbook, so people can make ‘good decisions’ based on the information they have—and also figure out what information is most relevant, and how to assign priorities or weights to different possible actions.)
(sorry for the length of this comment. i’m listening to the news right now and they are talking about how they are making emergency proclamations in Seattle and California—and some people are criticizing them because they say they don’t have any teeth in them,--just rhetoric or hot air—and don’t deal with ‘population heterogeneity’. i.e. FB workers are told to stay home and telecommute, while people like post office and delivery workers are told to continue business as usual. )
I have read and reread this comment and am honestly not sure whether this was a reply to my answer or to something else.
On point 1, I think the past week is a fair indication that the coronavirus is a big problem, and we can let this point pass.
On point 2, as of my answer, there seemed to be no academic talk of human challenge trials to shorten vaccine timelines, regardless of how many were working on vaccines. The problem I see is that if a human challenge trial would shorten timelines, authorities and researchers might still hesitate to run one due to paternalistic attitudes in medical ethics. The problem not that authorities and researchers are not trying to make a vaccine or need amateurs to do their job for them. So, this problem in particular seemed neglected, and worth raising to their attention.
On point 3, I’m not sure if you intended to discuss the expected impact of speeding vaccine development, or if you were confused on what a human challenge trial is? I did not discuss making theoretical models of the impact of the coronavirus on the world.
Points 4 and 5 do not seem to engage with my answer at all.
If this was a mispost, no harm no foul.
Otherwise- I’m not opposed to having a respectful, in-depth discussion of this issue. But the majority of your reply was off-topic and the rest only vaguely engaged with what I wrote. If future replies are similar I’m not going to respond.
https://sciencehouse.wordpress.com has a more recent study and discussion of 2 other studies at imperial college london and oxford. Science Magazine AAAS also has a whole issue (march 27) on topic. COVID-19 appears to be a real problem but time will tell. (My area has many scientists, but also many poor and uneducated people, so there are lots of ‘conspiracy theories’ floating around—‘viruses of the mind’—there are academic papers on these as well, mostly written by physicists.)
My point 4 i actually view as the main one, unless you are actually developing vaccines in a laboratory or testing them in the field. I have done a tiny bit of lab biology and field biology as a student a but its not my area )
In that sense my comment was ‘off topic’—i was talking about prevention, not cures. A term commonly used now is to avoid ‘hot spots’—the temperature or incidence of the virus is not the same everywhere, so while it may seem biased, avoid the hot spots . You can say hi to your neighbor, but you cant hug them.
I have mixed feelings about this idea because
1) its still fairly early to know how big a problem this is (and I have heard or read expert opinions on both sides—some say it may be a big problem, while others say it most likely is not)
2) using the EA INT ( Impact-Neglectedness—Tractability) framework (though some use SNT (U) where S= scale=Impact and (U) is ‘urgency’ (a time discounting or triage factor ---i.e. there’s no point in setting up a research program to find a cure if it is going to arrive too late ) I am not sure this issue is Neglected. (I think US govt just allocated 1⁄2 billion$ to work on this).
there are also already many people—epidimiologists, virologists, health care workers, and health management people ---working on this (internationally). Of course that doesn’t mean they couldn’t use some help, or that what they are doing is the most ‘effective’.
I wouldn’t dismiss what these professional people are doing (health departments, CDC, etc.) as innefective or in need of help or input than I would dismiss the efforts of the fire department for fires around here and just try to put the fire myself. But, its possible they could use help (even in a variety of ways—average people can just call the fire dept if they can’t put a fire out, and help any people displaced by the fire.)
3) I have already seen a few theoretical epidemiological papers on this subject. https://infomullet.com has one which is not peer reviewed and less theoretical (its more a ‘fermi ’ or ‘back of an envelope’ set of calculations (though done on a computer ) than a fully fledged theoretical model. (I think its based on the standard SIR model in epidemiology , or an updated , more complex modification of that).
If one is doing a theoretical model , I think one has to try to review what people are doing or have done , though one can at the same time develop your own models and compare—there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. (While I have done a little labwork as an undergrad, and studied some molecular biology, I am not a ‘wet lab worker’, so I would be unable to judge anything regarding possible vaccines except from a theoretical POV—and I’m very limited even at that . )
4) My view is, if this turns out to be a big problem, the real thing is to deal with ‘population heterogeneity’ . I gather China took this route—they sort of have quarantined entire cities, and have shut down transportation and trade routes . Also, within these cities, they have sort of quarantined subsections of the cities, homes and businesses . (So you have quarantines within quarantines.) (I imagine most people on this forum know that).
This is a preventetive intervention—no different than containing a wildfire (such as the ones that destroyed many homes and lives in California not long ago).
In lieu of a cure, thats the way to go. Just try to keep the problem localized.
In USA, CDC and others are already doing that.
It may be useful if people had an ‘app’ to know how close and where the virus (or fire) is—no different than an app for checking the weather.
Also, perhaps an ‘app’ which is a ‘checklist’ of things you should have at home, carry with you, and also where to go if there is a problem (health facility, or authorities who can tell you where to go if you need help—eg you know someone who i sick).
Also an ‘app’ which has a list of things you need to do to prepare for a case in which you lose electricity and internet service.
5) As an aside i’m sort of working (possibly with someone else though the project is in its infancy so we haven’t agreed on exactly what the project is or what form it takes—we each have our own closely related but distinct approaches—so we are just seeing if collaboration is possible ) . Both of us are more theoretically oriented but want a ‘fermi type’ solution—something that could be widely useful and applicable, rather than buried in an academic journal written in language noone without a PhD can understand.
It was not oriented towards the corona virus—its a general formalism—but could be applicable to that issue as well. (The idea is really like creating a very small and short ‘manual’ or handbook, so people can make ‘good decisions’ based on the information they have—and also figure out what information is most relevant, and how to assign priorities or weights to different possible actions.)
(sorry for the length of this comment. i’m listening to the news right now and they are talking about how they are making emergency proclamations in Seattle and California—and some people are criticizing them because they say they don’t have any teeth in them,--just rhetoric or hot air—and don’t deal with ‘population heterogeneity’. i.e. FB workers are told to stay home and telecommute, while people like post office and delivery workers are told to continue business as usual. )
I have read and reread this comment and am honestly not sure whether this was a reply to my answer or to something else.
On point 1, I think the past week is a fair indication that the coronavirus is a big problem, and we can let this point pass.
On point 2, as of my answer, there seemed to be no academic talk of human challenge trials to shorten vaccine timelines, regardless of how many were working on vaccines. The problem I see is that if a human challenge trial would shorten timelines, authorities and researchers might still hesitate to run one due to paternalistic attitudes in medical ethics. The problem not that authorities and researchers are not trying to make a vaccine or need amateurs to do their job for them. So, this problem in particular seemed neglected, and worth raising to their attention.
On point 3, I’m not sure if you intended to discuss the expected impact of speeding vaccine development, or if you were confused on what a human challenge trial is? I did not discuss making theoretical models of the impact of the coronavirus on the world.
Points 4 and 5 do not seem to engage with my answer at all.
If this was a mispost, no harm no foul.
Otherwise- I’m not opposed to having a respectful, in-depth discussion of this issue. But the majority of your reply was off-topic and the rest only vaguely engaged with what I wrote. If future replies are similar I’m not going to respond.
https://sciencehouse.wordpress.com has a more recent study and discussion of 2 other studies at imperial college london and oxford. Science Magazine AAAS also has a whole issue (march 27) on topic. COVID-19 appears to be a real problem but time will tell. (My area has many scientists, but also many poor and uneducated people, so there are lots of ‘conspiracy theories’ floating around—‘viruses of the mind’—there are academic papers on these as well, mostly written by physicists.)
My point 4 i actually view as the main one, unless you are actually developing vaccines in a laboratory or testing them in the field. I have done a tiny bit of lab biology and field biology as a student a but its not my area )
In that sense my comment was ‘off topic’—i was talking about prevention, not cures. A term commonly used now is to avoid ‘hot spots’—the temperature or incidence of the virus is not the same everywhere, so while it may seem biased, avoid the hot spots . You can say hi to your neighbor, but you cant hug them.
https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com may have more discussion that is more relevant to your post.