In this paper I develop and present a unified account of information, misinformation, and disinformation and their interconnections. The unified account is rooted in Paul Grice’s notions of natural and non-natural meaning (in: Grice (ed) Studies in the way of words. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 213–223, 1957) and a corresponding distinction between natural and non-natural information (Scarantino and Piccinini in Metaphilosophy 41(3):313–330, 2010). I argue that we can specify at least three specific kinds of non-natural information. Thus, as varieties of non-natural information there is intentionally non-misleading information, unintentionally misleading information—i.e. misinformation—and intentionally misleading information—i.e. disinformation. By shifting the focus from the truth-values of content to the intention/intentionality and misleadingness/non-misleadingness of that content I obtain a unified account that makes room for the potential misleadingness of true content (true disinformation), the potential non-misleadingness of false content (irony), and everything in between.

DANMASK-19, the first trial of mask use during covid-19, was “negative.” Masks didn’t work. We knew this before the trial was published because we were told so on social media. The authors were reported by the media to be struggling to find a major journal for their trial.1 Journals weren’t proving brave enough to publish the study, said the authors, and they didn’t make a preprint available.

(CNN)Wearing a mask can help protect you, not just those around you, from coronavirus transmission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in new guidance Tuesday. The statement was an update to previous guidance suggesting the main benefit of mask wearing was to help prevent infected people from spreading the virus to others.

A head-to-head comparison of lab and rapid coronavirus tests drew mixed reactions from experts, who raised concerns about accuracy.

Background Routine testing for SARS-CoV-2 in the community is essential for guiding key epidemiological decisions from the quarantine of individual patients to enrolling regional and national preventive measures. Yet, the primary testing tool, the RT-qPCR based testing, is notoriously known for its low sensitivity, i.e. high risk of missed detection of carriers. Quantifying the false-negative rate (FNR) of the RT-qPCR test at the community settings and its dependence on patient demographic and disease progression is therefore key in designing and refining strategies for disease spread prevention.Methods Analyzing 843,917 test results of 521,696 patients, we identified false-negative (FN) and true-positive (TP) results as negative and positive results preceded by a COVID-19 diagnosis and followed by a later positive test. Regression analyses were used to determine associations of false-negative results with time of sampling after diagnosis, patient demographics and viral loads based on RT-qPCR Ct values of the next positive tests.Findings The overall FNR was 22.8%, which is consistent with previous studies. Yet, this rate was much lower at the first 5 days following diagnosis (10.7%) and only increased in later dates. Furthermore, the FNR was strongly associated with demographics, with odds ratio of 1.74 (95% CI: 1.58-1.90) for women over men and 1.36 (95% CI: 1.34-1.39) for 10 years younger patients. Finally, FNR was associated with viral loads (p-value 0.0005), with a difference of 1.50 (95% CI: 0.70-2.30) between the average Ct of the N gene in a positive test following a false-negative compared to a positive test following a true-positive.Interpretation Our results show that in the first few days following diagnosis, when results are critical for quarantine decisions, RT-qPCR testing is more reliable than previously reported. Yet the reliability of the test result is reduced in later days as well as for women and younger patients, where the viral loads are typically lower.

Findings from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Keywords: coronavirus, corona virus, COVID 19, COVID19, Covid-19, community infections, infections in households

Meta-analyses are susceptible to publication bias, the selective publication of studies with statistically significant results. If publication bias is present in psychotherapy research, the efficacy of interventions will likely be overestimated. This study has two aims: (1) investigate whether the application of publication bias methods is warranted in psychotherapy research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and (2) investigate the degree and impact of publication bias in meta-analyses of the efficacy of psychotherapeutic treatment for PTSD. A comprehensive literature search was conducted and 26 meta-analyses were eligible for bias assessment. A Monte-Carlo simulation study closely resembling characteristics of the included meta-analyses revealed that statistical power of publication bias tests was generally low. Our results showed that publication bias tests had low statistical power and yielded imprecise estimates corrected for publication bias due to characteristics of the data. We recommend to assess publication bias using multiple publication bias methods, but only include methods that show acceptable performance in a method performance check that researchers first have to conduct themselves.

The ONS infection survey has come out and there has been a lot of discussion on the apparent decrease in proportion of “new variant compatible” cases.

Platform governance and the 2020 Presidential Election

Countries need to up their game to inoculate 70 percent of adults by the end of September.

Exclusive: study of low-risk individuals finds impairments four months after infection

Assessing the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 is critical to inform future preparedness response plans. Here we quantify the impact of 6,068 hierarchically coded NPIs implemented in 79 territories on the effective reproduction number, Rt, of COVID-19. We propose a modelling approach that combines four computational techniques merging statistical, inference and artificial intelligence tools. We validate our findings with two external datasets recording 42,151 additional NPIs from 226 countries. Our results indicate that a suitable combination of NPIs is necessary to curb the spread of the virus. Less disruptive and costly NPIs can be as effective as more intrusive, drastic, ones (for example, a national lockdown). Using country-specific ‘what-if’ scenarios, we assess how the effectiveness of NPIs depends on the local context such as timing of their adoption, opening the way for forecasting the effectiveness of future interventions.

Public gatherings in Sweden are to be limited to eight people, down from a previous upper limit of 300, the prime minister said on Monday, as he blamed a fall in adherence to infection control recommendations.

The best COVID-19 response in the world

(CNN)You're likely familiar with the tenets of Covid-19 prevention by now: Stay home when you can, keep 6 feet of distance from others when you're out and wear a mask if you're indoors or around other people. We've been told to do these things for so long -- around eight months now -- that they feel like second nature. But it can be tempting to relax and stop following these suggestions as stringently.

Three groups representing emergency and rescue services called on the federal government to take immediate “coordinated measures to contain the second wave” a day after Switzerland registered a record number of new cases of the coronavirus.

It’s year 2 of the pandemic, and masks have gone from a strange new experience to a core part of public life (and a fashion accessory!). With caseloads at record highs and a more infectious new variant on the horizon, we felt it was time to build a concise review for which masks give you the most protection and when you want to use them.

The disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic led many social scientists toward online survey experimentation for empirical research. Generalizing from the experiments conducted during a period of persistent crisis may be challenging due to changes in who participates in online survey research and how the participants respond to treatments. We investigate the generalizability of COVID-era survey experiments with 33 replications of 12 pre-pandemic designs fielded across 13 surveys on American survey respondents obtained from Lucid between March and July of 2020. We find strong evidence that these experiments replicate in terms of sign and significance, but at somewhat reduced magnitudes that are possibly explained by increased inattentiveness. These findings mitigate concerns about the generalizability of online research during this period. The pandemic does not appear to have fundamentally changed how subjects respond to treatments, provided they pay attention to treatments and outcome questions. In this light, we offer some suggestions for renewed care in the design, analysis, and interpretation of experiments conducted during the pandemic.

Liebe Wisskomm- und #BSWK-Freunde,das Jahr 2021 startet mit neuen Herausforderungen für die Wissenschaftskommunikation: Nicht nur die deutsche Impfstrategie, sondern auch die Kommunikation über Impfungen ist von einem "Evergreen" der Wissenschaftskommunikation zu einem drängenden, tagesaktuellen Thema geworden. Wer kommuniziert wie über Impfungen? Und wie können wir mit Desinformationen umgehen? Wir freuen uns auf eine spannende Diskussion mit:Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol, Autor "The Debunking Handbook"Julia Neufeind, Robert-Koch-Institut, Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin im Fachgebiet ImpfpräventionWir treffen uns am Dienstag, 26. Januar um 19 Uhr zum Videochat über Zoom.PS. Neues Jahr, neues BSWK-Team: Der Stammtisch wird ab sofort von Anne Weißschädel und Michael Siegel von Wissenschaft im Dialog organisiert. Wir danken Rebecca Winkels und Jörg Weiß für ihr Engagement!Wir freuen uns auf EuchAnne & Michael// Über den BSWKBeim offenen Berliner Stammtisch Wissenschaftskommunikation (BSWK) treffen sich Wissenschaftsjournalist*innen, Wissenschaftskommunikator*innen und an Wissenschaftskommunikation Interessierte (z.B. Forschende) am letzten Dienstag des Monats in Berlin, um sich über aktuelle Entwicklungen der Wissenschaftskommunikation auszutauschen. Es gibt sowohl Themen-Abende als auch eine spontane Abfrage zu Beginn, wen gerade was beschäftigt und worüber jeder gerne reden würde. Über Termine und Treffpunkte informieren Anne Weißschädel und Michael Siegel über Mailingliste, Meetup, Facebook und Twitter.// On the BSWKOn the last Tuesday of every month, science journalists, science outreach professionals, and anyone interested in science communication meet to discuss developments in the field of science communication at the public Berlin Science Communication Stammtisch (#BSWK). There are both themed as well as spontaneous discussion to start off, based on what people are working on or what everyone would most like to talk about. The Stammtisch is organized each week by Anne Weißschädel and Michael Siegel.

The ideas in public circulation about preventing transmission of coronavirus are now quite adrift from the evidence that has accumulated in the past 6 months. As part of tackling this – and the absence of attention to ventilation in particular – we have created this snapshot. Please share this widely amongst your networks.

This guidance aims to optimise public health messaging and its outcomes. It is based on an evidence-based rapid review of the evidence1 of the factors that may influence people’s responses to public health messages for managing risks and preventing infectious diseases.

Background Population level behaviour change, requiring individual behaviour change such as hand hygiene and physical distancing, are central to reducing transmission of infectious diseases, including COVID-19, but little is known about how best to communicate this type of risk reducing information, and how populations might respond. We conducted a rapid systematic review to identify and synthesise evidence relating to: a) What characterises effective public-health messages for managing risk and preventing infectious disease, and b) What influences people’s responses to public-health messages. Methods Rapid systematic review methodology was used. We included all study designs and grey literature. Non-English language papers were excluded. Ovid Medline, Ovid PsycINFO and Healthevidence.org were searched alongside PsyarXiv and OSF Preprints up to May 2020. A narrative synthesis was conducted. Findings We identified 70 eligible papers: 3 systematic reviews, 54 individual papers and 14 pre-prints. To influence behaviour effectively at the population level, public-health messages need to be acceptable, credible and trustworthy, to increase the public’s understanding and perceptions of the threat. Interpretation Key recommendations are to: engage communities in the development of public-health messaging, use credible and legitimate sources, address uncertainty immediately and with transparency, focus on unifying messages from all sources, and develop messages aimed at increasing understanding, induce social responsibility and empower personal control. Embedding these principles of behavioural science into public-health messaging is an important step towards more effective health-risk communication for managing risk, promoting protective behaviours and preventing disease during epidemics/pandemics.

As the UK approves the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, these authors call for an inclusive approach to vaccine allocation

The lessons of the first and harshest lockdown in Europe have not been heeded as Italy drowns in a second wave, writes Marta PaterliniIn October, Giulia Chiarcossi, 80, called her doctor’s office to arrange her flu vaccination, as she has done every year for the past 15 years, usually getting it done straightaway. “My family doctor told me to call back in November,” she says, a little surprised. There were no flu vaccinations available.Mindful of the dangers of winter and a potential twin epidemic of covid-19 and influenza, the Italian Ministry of Health has for months urged regions to start administering flu vaccinations early and extend free coverage to people over 60.Chiarcossi lives in Brescia in the northern region of Lombardy, one of the epicentres of the first coronavirus wave, which began in February. Italy’s most wealthy and populous region, Lombardy was until May the hardest hit region in the whole of Europe.1Yet despite this, and the ministry’s plea, Lombardy’s regional government did not place its vaccine orders until September and started vaccinating only in mid-October. Some people have received flu vaccinations, but Chiarcossi is one of many who must wait until an unspecified date in November.More than one million Italians have been infected with covid-19 to date. “Now, again, it seems that Italy is trying to chase the virus instead of containing [it],” says Alberto Mantovani, scientific director of the Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan. “We are paying for a structural failure of our primary care.”

Avoiding too much direct contact with colleagues can lead to more independent thinking

Experts suggest limiting travel and keeping Thanksgiving and other celebrations small and outdoors

In the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic has driven a surge in bicycle sales and use. A more supportive federal policy toward non-car mobility could help it roll on. 

There has been a “shocking” decline in primary school pupils’ levels of attainment in England after lockdown, testing has revealed, with younger children and those from disadvantaged backgrounds worst affected.

Junior researchers need to engage with policymakers, institutions, funders and media outlets to argue against planned budget cut-backs, warn Brian Cahill and Marco Masia.

Thursday brought more coronavirus infections than in any other day of the pandemic. Around the country, the virus left its mark.

What colour is 6d46c4? It feels a bit of a nonsensical question to most of us. It’s a code for a certain colour in hexadecimal, familiar probably only to web designers. Similarly, print designers are used to working in Pantone colour codes; physicists in nanometres of wavelength. Most of us, though, simply do not think of colours in numerical terms. To us they are a purely qualitative, emotional experience. The same is true of “risk.” Most people also do not think of risks in numerical terms. When we at the Winton Centre for Risk & Evidence Communication were recently talking to members of the public about risks from covid-19 they did not use numbers at all. Even when we asked them to put a number on the chances of a person dying from covid-19 if they caught the virus, it was like asking them to give the wavelength of green light.

Since early March the Covid Tracking Project has cataloged more than 170 million tests, becoming the authoritative source for virus statistics in the U.S.

We began the year in an optimistic mood by imagining the next decade of behavioral science. As the field celebrated something of a tenth birthday, we asked behavioral scientists to weigh in with their hopes, fears, and questions for the coming decade.

A student asked me today about the differences between confounding and effect modification. In this post I’ll try and distinguish these conceptually and illustrate the differences using some very large simple simulated datasets in R.

Only an event such as wartime evacuation can compare to lockdown. Plans for the young need to meet the challenge

Student-led mutual aid networks have raised tens of thousands of dollars to help peers cover basic costs of living.

Doctors, scientists and the hospitality industry all say that Boris Johnson's plans for Christmas are a mistake.

Science policy issues have recently joined technology issues in being acknowledged to have strategic importance for national ‘competitiveness’ and ‘economic security’. The economics literature addressed specifically to science and its interdependences with technological progress has been quite narrowly focused and has lacked an overarching conceptual framework to guide empirical studies and public policy discussions in this area. The emerging ‘new economics of science’, described by this paper, offers a way to remedy these deficiencies. It makes use of insights from the theory of games of incomplete information to synthesize the classic approach of Arrow and Nelson in examining the implications of the characteristics of information for allocative efficiency in research activities, on the one hand, with the functionalist analysis of institutional structures, reward systems and behavioral norms of ‘open science’ communities-associated with the sociology of science in the tradition of Merton-on the other.An analysis is presented of the gross features of the institutions and norms distinguishing open science from other modes of organizing scientific research, which shows that the collegiate reputation-based reward system functions rather well in satisfying the requirement of social efficiency in increasing the stock of reliable knowledge. At a more fine-grain level of examination, however, the detailed workings of the system based on the pursuit of priority are found to cause numerous inefficiencies in the allocation of basic and applied science resources, both within given fields and programs and across time. Another major conclusion, arrived at in the context of examining policy measures and institutional reforms proposed to promote knowledge transfers between university-based open science and commercial R&D, is that there are no economic forces that operate automatically to maintain dynamic efficiency in the interactions of these two (organizational) spheres. Ill-considered institutional experiments, which destroy their distinctive features if undertaken on a sufficient scale, may turn out to be very costly in terms of long-term economic performance.

Prepublication peer review should be abolished. We consider the effects that such a change will have on the social structure of science, paying particular attention to the changed incentive structure and the likely effects on the behaviour of individual scientists. We evaluate these changes from the perspective of epistemic consequentialism. We find that where the effects of abolishing prepublication peer review can be evaluated with a reasonable level of confidence based on presently available evidence, they are either positive or neutral. We conclude that on present evidence abolishing peer review weakly dominates the status quo.

The science around the use of masks by the public to impede COVID-19 transmission is advancing rapidly. In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas: population impact, transmission characteristics, source control, wearer protection, sociological considerations, and implementation considerations. A primary route of transmission of COVID-19 is via respiratory particles, and it is known to be transmissible from presymptomatic, paucisymptomatic, and asymptomatic individuals. Reducing disease spread requires two things: limiting contacts of infected individuals via physical distancing and other measures and reducing the transmission probability per contact. The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected respiratory particles in both laboratory and clinical contexts. Public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high. Given the current shortages of medical masks, we recommend the adoption of public cloth mask wearing, as an effective form of source control, in conjunction with existing hygiene, distancing, and contact tracing strategies. Because many respiratory particles become smaller due to evaporation, we recommend increasing focus on a previously overlooked aspect of mask usage: mask wearing by infectious people (“source control”) with benefits at the population level, rather than only mask wearing by susceptible people, such as health care workers, with focus on individual outcomes. We recommend that public officials and governments strongly encourage the use of widespread face masks in public, including the use of appropriate regulation.

Here’s the familiar news: governments around the world face a crisis of trust. Populations are increasingly polarized. Politicians struggle to make tough decisions that demand consensus and a long-term view.Less familiar is the fact that governments are increasingly turning to the public for help in decision-making, through deliberative processes such as citizens’ assemblies and juries — and it seems to be working. But now the events of 2020 have moved much of this online, and we shouldn’t take success for granted.

A study published in the BMJ evaluates the accuracy of the AbC-19TM Rapid Test for detection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection in key workers.

Medical ethicist Ezekiel Emanuel discusses a framework for equitably allocating COVID-19 vaccines based on preventing premature deaths and mitigating long-term economic impacts

Why is it that Sweden, which was first to introduce mandatory use of seatbelts in cars, seems to be the last country to recommend face masks to prevent  community transmission of COVID-19 spread? Sweden has been a champion for evidence-driven public health. Even when the weight of evidence has been questionable, national authorities have opted for precautionary measures in the name of health and wellbeing of its citizens, such as maintaining a state monopoly on alcohol sales.

As the UK enters into its second national lockdown, a possible light at the end of the long COVID tunnel emerged from a small country in Central Europe. Last weekend, Slovakia tested 3.6 million people for coronavirus – 97% of the eligible population of people aged 10-65. 

Much remains uncertain for business, the economy, domestic politics and international relations

We should turn to people who know more than we do — particularly for topics that are complex

Treasury rejects researcher’s claim that its scheme was closely linked to rise in cases

Economists warn many unemployed families won’t be able to pay rent and utilities without more stimulus aid from Congress

Nearly a year after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, it is time to look back and assess what could have been predicted by health experts.

Wealthy state that has eschewed new curbs faces one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the world

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland announced tighter restrictions on Sunday to tackle the second wave of the coronavirus hitting the country, including a nation-wide obligation to wear masks and a ban on large scale public gatherings.

Three different households will be allowed to mix inside, but most experts are being cautious

We build a publicly available database that tracks economic activity at a granular level in real time using anonymized data from private companies.

The models could help inform policy on everything from mask mandates to social distancing

Many patients discharged from hospitals in England in the past six months under new arrangements to free up beds did not get the follow-up support they needed, concludes a report from HealthWatch, which represents patients’ interests in England.

In October, Healthwatch England published a report on the experiences of 590 patients and carers,1 interviewed about leaving hospital under NHS England’s “discharge to assess” arrangements from April to August 2020. Many patients and families reported that communication and implementation of discharge had been poor.

With the holidays fast approaching and COVID-19 cases and deaths reaching new highs, some U.S. officials are, to limit the spread of COVID-19, urging—or even requiring—that residents alter their typical celebrations.

Government imposes mandatory measures after failing to contain new surge in infections

Transmission of highly infectious respiratory diseases, including SARS-CoV-2, is facilitated by the transport of exhaled droplets and aerosols that can remain suspended in air for extended periods of time. A passenger car cabin represents one such situation with an elevated risk of pathogen transmission. Here, we present results from numerical simulations to assess how the in-cabin microclimate of a car can potentially spread pathogenic species between occupants for a variety of open and closed window configurations. We estimate relative concentrations and residence times of a noninteracting, passive scalar—a proxy for infectious particles—being advected and diffused by turbulent airflows inside the cabin. An airflow pattern that travels across the cabin, farthest from the occupants, can potentially reduce the transmission risk. Our findings reveal the complex fluid dynamics during everyday commutes and nonintuitive ways in which open windows can either increase or suppress airborne transmission.

INTRODUCTIONThe emergence of three lethal coronaviruses in <20 years and the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted efforts to develop new therapeutic strategies, including by repurposing existing agents. After performing a comparative analysis of the three pathogenic human coronaviruses severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 1 (SARS-CoV-1), SARS-CoV-2, and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), we identified shared biology and host-directed drug targets to prioritize therapeutics with potential for rapid deployment against current and future coronavirus outbreaks.RATIONALEExpanding on our recent SARS-CoV-2 interactome, we mapped the virus-host protein-protein interactions for SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV and assessed the cellular localization of each viral protein across the three strains. We conducted two genetic screens of SARS-CoV-2 interactors to prioritize functionally-relevant host factors and structurally characterized one virus-host interaction. We then tested the clinical relevance of three more host factors by assessing risk in genetic cohorts or observing effectiveness of host factor–targeting drugs in real-world evidence.RESULTSQuantitative comparison of the 389 interactors of SARS-CoV-2, 366 of SARS-CoV-1, and 296 of MERS-CoV highlighted interactions with host processes that are conserved across all three viruses, including where nonorthologous proteins from different virus strains seem to fill similar roles. We also localized each individually-expressed viral protein by microscopy and then raised and validated antisera against 14 SARS-CoV-2 proteins to determine their localization during infection.On the basis of two independent genetic perturbation screens, we identified 73 host factors that, when depleted, caused significant changes in SARS-CoV-2 replication. From this list of potential drug targets, we validated the biological and clinical relevance of Tom70, IL17RA, PGES-2, and SigmaR1.A 3-Å cryo–electron microscopy structure of Tom70, a mitochondrial import receptor, in complex with SARS-CoV-2 ORF9b, provides insight into how ORF9b may modulate the host immune response. Using curated genome-wide association study data, we found that individuals with genotypes corresponding to higher soluble IL17RA levels in plasma are at decreased risk of COVID-19 hospitalization.To demonstrate the value of our data for drug repurposing, we identified SARS-CoV-2 patients who were prescribed drugs against prioritized targets and asked how they fared compared with carefully matched patients treated with clinically similar drugs that do not inhibit SARS-CoV-2. Both indomethacin, an inhibitor of host factor PGES-2, and typical antipsychotics, selected for their interaction with sigma receptors, showed effectiveness against COVID-19 compared with celecoxib and atypical antipsychotics, respectively.CONCLUSIONBy employing an integrative and collaborative approach, we identified conserved mechanisms across three pathogenic coronavirus strains and further investigated potential drug targets. This versatile approach is broadly applicable to other infectious agents and disease areas.

Views of the role of hypothesis falsification in statistical testing do not divide as cleanly between frequentist and Bayesian views as is commonly supposed. This can be shown by considering the two major variants of the Bayesian approach to statistical inference and the two major variants of the frequentist one.

Can social contextual factors explain international differences in the spread of COVID-19? It is widely assumed that social cohesion, public confidence in government sources of health information and general concern for the welfare of others support health advisories during a pandemic and save lives. We tested this assumption through a time-series analysis of cross-national differences in COVID-19 mortality during an early phase of the pandemic. Country data on income inequality and four dimensions of social capital (trust, group affiliations, civic responsibility and confidence in public institutions) were linked to data on COVID-19 deaths in 84 countries. Associations with deaths were examined using Poisson regression with population-averaged estimators. During a 30-day period after recording their tenth death, mortality was positively related to income inequality, trust and group affiliations and negatively related to social capital from civic engagement and confidence in state institutions. These associations held in bivariate and mutually controlled regression models with controls for population size, age and wealth. The results indicate that societies that are more economically unequal and lack capacity in some dimensions of social capital experienced more COVID-19 deaths. Social trust and belonging to groups were associated with more deaths, possibly due to behavioural contagion and incongruence with physical distancing policy. Some countries require a more robust public health response to contain the spread and impact of COVID-19 due to economic and social divisions within them.

Numerous polls suggest that COVID-19 is a profoundly partisan issue in the United States. Using the geotracking data of 15 million smartphones per day, we found that US counties that voted for Donald Trump (Republican) over Hillary Clinton (Democrat) in the 2016 presidential election exhibited 14% less physical distancing between March and May 2020. Partisanship was more strongly associated with physical distancing than numerous other factors, including counties’ COVID-19 cases, population density, median income, and racial and age demographics. Contrary to our predictions, the observed partisan gap strengthened over time and remained when stay-at-home orders were active. Additionally, county-level consumption of conservative media (Fox News) was related to reduced physical distancing. Finally, the observed partisan differences in distancing were associated with subsequently higher COVID-19 infection and fatality growth rates in pro-Trump counties. Taken together, these data suggest that US citizens’ responses to COVID-19 are subject to a deep—and consequential—partisan divide.

The global spread of the novel coronavirus is affected by the spread of related misinformation -- the so-called COVID-19 Infodemic -- that makes populations more vulnerable to the disease through resistance to mitigation efforts. Here we analyze the prevalence and diffusion of links to low-credibility content about the pandemic across two major social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook. We characterize cross-platform similarities and differences in popular sources, diffusion patterns, influencers, coordination, and automation. Comparing the two platforms, we find divergence among the prevalence of popular low-credibility sources and suspicious videos. A minority of accounts and pages exert a strong influence on each platform. These misinformation "superspreaders" are often associated with the low-credibility sources and tend to be verified by the platforms. On both platforms, there is evidence of coordinated sharing of Infodemic content. The overt nature of this manipulation points to the need for societal-level rather than in-house mitigation strategies. However, we highlight limits imposed by inconsistent data-access policies on our capability to study harmful manipulations of information ecosystems.

The friendship paradox is the observation that the degrees of the neighbors of a node in any network will, on average, be greater than the degree of the node itself. In common parlance, your friends have more friends than you do. In this paper we develop the mathematical theory of the friendship paradox, both in general as well as for specific model networks, focusing not only on average behavior but also on variation about the average and using generating function methods to calculate full distributions of quantities of interest. We compare the predictions of our theory with measurements on a large number of real-world network data sets and find remarkably good agreement. We also develop equivalent theory for the generalized friendship paradox, which compares characteristics of nodes other than degree to those of their neighbors.

Inter-hospital patient transfers (direct transfers) between healthcare facilities have been shown to contribute to the spread of pathogens in a healthcare network. However, the impact of indirect transfers (patients re-admitted from the community to the same or different hospital) is not well studied. This work aims to study the contribution of indirect transfers to the spread of pathogens in a healthcare network. To address this aim, a hybrid network–deterministic model to simulate the spread of multiresistant pathogens in a healthcare system was developed for the region of Lower Saxony (Germany). The model accounts for both, direct and indirect transfers of patients. Intra-hospital pathogen transmission is governed by a SIS model expressed by a system of ordinary differential equations. Our results show that the proposed model reproduces the basic properties of healthcare-associated pathogen spread. They also show the importance of indirect transfers: restricting the pathogen spread to direct transfers only leads to 4.2% system wide prevalence. However, adding indirect transfers leads to an increase in the overall prevalence by a factor of 4 (18%). In addition, we demonstrated that the final prevalence in the individual healthcare facilities depends on average length of stay in a way described by a non-linear concave function. Moreover, we demonstrate that the network parameters of the model may be derived from administrative admission/discharge records. In particular, they are sufficient to obtain inter-hospital transfer probabilities, and to express the patients’ transfers as a Markov process. Using the proposed model, we show that indirect transfers of patients are equally or even more important as direct transfers for the spread of pathogens in a healthcare network.

The structure and design of optimal supply networks is an important topic in complex networks research. A fundamental trait of natural and man-made networks is the emergence of loops and the trade-off governing their formation: adding redundant edges to supply networks is costly, yet beneficial for resilience. Loops typically form when costs for new edges are small or inputs uncertain. Here, we shed further light on the transition to loop formation. We demonstrate that loops emerge discontinuously when decreasing the costs for new edges for both an edge-damage model and a fluctuating sink model. Mathematically, new loops are shown to form through a saddle-node bifurcation. Our analysis allows to heuristically predict the location and cost where the first loop emerges. Finally, we unveil an intimate relationship among betweenness measures and optimal tree networks. Our results can be used to understand the evolution of loop formation in real-world biological networks.

Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries have implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions like wearing masks, physical distancing, lockdown, and travel restrictions. Because of their economic and logistical effects, tracking mobility changes during quarantines is crucial in assessing their efficacy and predicting the virus spread. Chile, one of the worst-hit countries in the world, unlike many other countries, implemented quarantines at a more localized level, shutting down small administrative zones, rather than the whole country or large regions. Given the non-obvious effects of these localized quarantines, tracking mobility becomes even more critical in Chile. To assess the impact on human mobility of the localized quarantines in Chile, we analyze a mobile phone dataset made available by Telefónica Chile, which comprises 31 billion eXtended Detail Records and 5.4 million users covering the period February 26th to September 20th, 2020. From these records, we derive three epidemiologically relevant metrics describing the mobility within and between comunas. The datasets made available can be used to fight the COVID-19 epidemics, particularly for localized quarantines' less understood effect.

This chapter looks at the spatial distribution and mobility patterns of essential and non-essential workers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in London and compares them to the rest of the UK. In the 3-month lockdown that started on 23 March 2020, 20% of the workforce was deemed to be pursuing essential jobs. The other 80%% were either furloughed, which meant being supported by the government to not work, or working from home. Based on travel journey data between zones (trips were decomposed into essential and non-essential trips. Despite some big regional differences within the UK, we find that essential workers have much the same spatial patterning as non-essential for all occupational groups containing essential and non-essential workers. Also, the amount of travel time saved by working from home during the Pandemic is roughly the same proportion -80%-as the separation between essential and non-essential workers. Further, the loss of travel, reduction in workers, reductions in retail spending as well as increases in use of parks are examined in different London boroughs using Google Mobility Reports which give us a clear picture of what has happened over the last 6 months since the first Lockdown. These reports also now imply that a second wave of infection is beginning.

Twitter is among the most used online platforms for the political communications, due to the concision of its messages (which is particularly suitable for political slogans) and the quick diffusion of messages. Especially when the argument stimulate the emotionality of users, the content on Twitter is shared with extreme speed and thus studying the tweet sentiment if of utmost importance to predict the evolution of the discussions and the register of the relative narratives. In this article, we present a model able to reproduce the dynamics of the sentiments of tweets related to specific topics and periods and to provide a prediction of the sentiment of the future posts based on the observed past. The model is a recent variant of the Pólya urn, introduced and studied in arXiv:1906.10951 and arXiv:2010.06373, which is characterized by a "local" reinforcement, i.e. a reinforcement mechanism mainly based on the most recent observations, and by a random persistent fluctuation of the predictive mean. In particular, this latter feature is capable of capturing the trend fluctuations in the sentiment curve. While the proposed model is extremely general and may be also employed in other contexts, it has been tested on several Twitter data sets and demonstrated greater performances compared to the standard Pólya urn model. Moreover, the different performances on different data sets highlight different emotional sensitivities respect to a public event.

It is better to stop misinformation taking root than to try to weed it out.

Vaccine developers who have already reported promising phase III trial results against COVID-19 estimate that, between them, they can make sufficient doses for more than one-third of the world’s population by the end of 2021. But many people in low-income countries might have to wait until 2023 or 2024 for vaccination, according to estimates from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued the first emergency use authorization (EUA) for a vaccine for the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in individuals 16 years of age and older. The emergency use authorization allows the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to be distributed in the U.S.

Employers have latitude to know how workers are spending their off hours and can take away vacation time to protect the workplace from Covid-19

We have curated the wealth of COVID-19 related video content relevant for behavioral scientists since the start of the pandemic. This Video Viewer is fed by videos we are collecting in SciBeh's knowledge base.

Renewed restrictions may be necessary, but they have a heavy toll.

Still about two-in-ten ‘pretty certain’ they won’t get vaccine – even when there’s more information

COVID-19 is one of the biggest global public health challenges of the century with almost 42 million cases and more than a million deaths to date. Until a COVID-19 vaccine or effective pharmaceutical intervention is developed, alternative tools for the rapid identification, containment, and mitigation of the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are of paramount importance for managing community transmission. Within this context, school closure has been one of the strategies implemented to reduce spread at local and national levels. Experience gained from influenza epidemics showed that school closures reduce social contacts between students and therefore interrupt chains of transmission between students and households.1Jackson C Mangtani P Hawker J Olowokure B Vynnycky E The effects of school closures on influenza outbreaks and pandemics: systematic review of simulation studies.PLoS One. 2014; 9e97297Crossref PubMed Scopus (42) Google Scholar How school-age children transmit coronaviruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and SARS-CoV-2 within school settings and at a local community scale is less clear.

Why do bad methods persist in some academic disciplines, even when they have been clearly rejected in others? What factors allow good methodological advances to spread across disciplines? In this paper, we investigate some key features determining the success and failure of methodological spread between the sciences. We introduce a model that considers factors like methodological competence and reviewer bias towards one's own methods. We show how self-preferential biases can protect poor methodology within scientific communities, and lack of reviewer competence can contribute to failures to adopt better methods. We further argue, however, that input from outside disciplines, especially in the form of peer review and other credit assignment mechanisms, can help break down barriers to methodological improvement.

What is the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 2020 U.S. presidential election? Guided by a pre-analysis plan, we estimate the effect of COVID-19 cases and deaths on the change in county-level voting for Donald Trump between 2016 and 2020. To account for potential confounders, we include a large number of COVID-19-related controls as well as demographic and socioeconomic variables. Moreover, we instrument the numbers of cases and deaths with the share of workers employed in meat-processing factories to sharpen our identification strategy. We find that COVID-19 cases negatively affected Trump's vote share. The estimated effect appears strongest in urban counties, in swing states, and in states that Trump won in 2016. A simple counterfactual analysis suggests that Trump would likely have won re-election if COVID-19 cases had been 5 percent lower. Our paper contributes to the literature of retrospective voting and demonstrates that voters hold leaders accountable for their (mis-)handling of negative shocks.

Open Science (OS) increases the quality, efficiency, and impact of science. This has been widely recognised by scholars, funders, and policy makers. However, despite the increasing availability of infrastructure supporting OS and the rise in policies and incentives to change behavior, OS practices are not yet the norm. While pioneering researchers are developing and embracing OS practices, the majority sticks to the status quo. To transition from pioneering to common practice, we need to engage a critical proportion of the academic community. In this transition, Open Science Communities (OSCs) play a key role. OSCs are bottom-up learning groups of scholars that discuss OS practices, within and across disciplines. They make OS knowledge and know-how more visible and accessible, and facilitate communication among scholars and policy makers. By the same token, community members shape the transition to OS such that it is most beneficial for researchers, science, and society. Over the past two years, eleven OSCs were founded at several Dutch university cities, with approximately 700 members in total (at the time of writing). In other countries, similar OSCs are starting up. In this paper, we discuss the pivotal role OSCs play in the large-scale transition to OS and provide practical information on how to start a local OSC. We emphasize that, despite the grassroot character of OSCs, support from universities is critical for OSCs to be viable, effective, and sustainable.

An earlier start to the second COVID-19 epidemic wave in Spain compared with other European countries has raised overt criticism to their public health administrations’ response.1COVID-19 in Spain: a predictable storm?.Lancet Public Health. 2020; 5: e568Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar We want to contribute to this debate constructively, sharing our perspective as public health professionals involved in the response, even if many aspects are outside our direct remit.Spain greatly increased its response capacities after the first wave of this virus. An improved test-trace-isolate strategy was implemented in May and, by late June, more than 80% of patients suspected to have COVID-19 were PCR-tested within 24–48 h, and 90% of patients had their contacts traced (Monge S, unpublished). PCR capacities were similar to that of other countries2Han E Tan MMJ Turk E et al.Lessons learnt from easing COVID-19 restrictions: an analysis of countries and regions in Asia Pacific and Europe.Lancet. 2020; 396: 1525-1534Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (28) Google Scholar and have been further strengthened (with a current national weekly testing rate of 2·563 per 100 000 inhabitants),3Ministerio de SanidadSituación actual.https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/alertasActual/nCov/situacionActual.htmDate accessed: November 6, 2020Google Scholar and the public health workforce has increased by three times.3Ministerio de SanidadSituación actual.https://www.mscbs.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/alertasActual/nCov/situacionActual.htmDate accessed: November 6, 2020Google Scholar On the basis of a national seroprevalence study,4Pollán M Pérez-Gómez B Pastor-Barriuso R et al.Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Spain (ENE-COVID): a nationwide, population-based seroepidemiological study.Lancet. 2020; 396: 535-544Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (214) Google Scholar we estimate the current detection capacity to be at 60–80% of infected individuals. All strategies and protocols were integrated into an updated early response plan, adapted at the regional level, including provisions for increasing epidemiological surveillance, test-trace-isolate procedures, strategic reserves, and health-care capacity, among others, which was adopted in July. However, weaknesses persist in the system, with chronic underinvestment in primary health care, public health, digitalisation, research and innovation, bureaucratic procedures, and with little availability of trained professionals.

Currently, countries across the world are applying policies designed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, such as lockdowns, international travel restrictions, subsectoral closures, and adjustments in public transportation. Although these restrictions can be effective in controlling the epidemiological dynamics, they also need to be assessed in terms of their acceptability by populations. The preferences of populations should matter, particularly after months of efforts, and the new requirements of lockdowns in several European countries despite these efforts.

As many countries seek to slow the spread of COVID-19 without reimposing national restrictions, it has become important to track the disease at a local level to identify areas in need of targeted intervention.

The global COVID-19 death toll stands at more than 1·3 million. Among the lives lost have been those of health-care workers, who have had crucial roles throughout the response and continue to serve at the front lines. At the outset of the pandemic, doctors warned of the potential implications of the virus. As the virus spread, many doctors provided treatment for a disease they little understood, while others contributed to accelerated research on potential treatments and vaccines. And as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened worldwide, health professionals worked tirelessly to provide care for patients—some even emerged from retirement to provide assistance.

As someone who has been immersed in the COVID-19 pandemic since January of 2020, looking back on all that has happened since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is an extreme challenge. Trying to keep the full context of all the events, the new discoveries, the policies, and the rhetoric is almost a specialty in its own right. That's why a book like Unprepared: America in the Time of Coronavirus by Jon Sternfeld has such value. There will be many books written on this pandemic, but I suspect none that provide such a unique service as Unprepared does. This book is not a traditional narrative but more akin to a pandemic scrapbook. Unprepared is entirely comprised of COVID-related quotations from public figures, news outlets, and organisations. These are chronologically ordered beginning with the ominous news of Dec 31, 2019, which heralded what was to come, extending through June 5, 2020. The book is divided into five sections each aptly titled (e.g., “The Arrival”, “The Emergency”, “The Reckoning”).

In their response to our Personal View,1Brown RCH Kelly D Wilkinson D Savulescu J The scientific and ethical feasibility of immunity passports.Lancet Infect Dis. 2020; (published online Oct 16.)https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30766-0Summary Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (3) Google Scholar Françoise Baylis and Natalie Kofler argue that our position is informed by a misguided emphasis on liberal individualism. By contrast, they argue that their insistence that immunity passports must be fought “tooth and nail”2Baylis F Kofler N Why Canadians should fight tooth and nail against proof-of-immunity cards.https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-pandemic-coronavirus-immunity-passport-1.5551528Date: May 7, 2020Date accessed: November 17, 2020Google Scholar is based on a more justifiable, communitarian approach to public health.Our concern for individual liberties is not, we think, extreme. We agree that individuals might be required to make sacrifices in order to promote the social good and, indeed, that the current situation demands many such sacrifices. Although it is unclear what, precisely, Baylis and Kofler's communitarian public health ethic commits one to, it does not (presumably) require a jettisoning of individual interests altogether. Individuals are, after all, components of communities.

Philadelphia is home to some of the most venerated medical institutions in the country. Yet when it came time to set up the city’s first and largest coronavirus mass vaccination site, officials turned to the start-up Philly Fighting COVID, a self-described “group of college kids” with minimal health-care experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the UN’s flagship plan to end poverty and protect the environment. Researchers need to launch a rapid response.

Alfred Moore and Michael K MacKenzie argue that greater openness about disagreement among diverse types of experts makes it harder for political leaders to politicise expertise

In recent years, social media has become an important platform for political discourse, being a site of both political conversations between voters and political advertisements from campaigns. While their individual influences on public discourse are well documented, the interplay between individual-level cognitive biases, social influence processes, dueling campaign efforts, and social media platforms remains unexamined. We introduce an agent-based model that integrates these dynamics and illustrates how their combination can lead to the formation of echo chambers. We find that the range of political viewpoints that individuals are willing to consider is a key determinant in the formation of polarized networks and the emergence of echo chambers and show that aggressive political campaigns can have counterproductive outcomes by radicalizing supporters and alienating moderates. Our model results demonstrate how certain elements of public discourse and political polarization can be understood as the result of an interactive process of shifting individual opinions, evolving social networks, and political campaigns. We also introduce a dynamic empirical case, retweet networks from the final stage of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, to show how our proposed model can be calibrated with real-world behavior.

Objectives. Written benefit finding has been associated with improvements in psychological and physical health in a range of patient groups. In the present study, we aimed to test the efficacy of written benefit finding, delivered online during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, on self-reported anxiety, depression, stress and physical symptoms. We also sought to investigate the moderating role of perseverative thinking on these effects. Design. A quantitative longitudinal design was employed. Methods. Participants (n = 91, 33 males, Mage = 37.6, SDage = 15.5; 58 females, Mage = 40.0, SDage = 13.7) completed self-report measures of anxiety, depression, stress and physical symptoms at baseline, and again two weeks after being randomised to complete three consecutive days of writing about the positive thoughts and feelings they’ve experienced in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic (written benefit finding condition) or to unemotively describe the events of the previous day (control condition). Self-reported state anxiety was measured immediately before and after writing. Perseverative thinking was also measured at baseline. Results. There was a significant reduction in state anxiety in the written benefit finding condition, relative to the control condition. Anxiety and depression decreased between baseline and the two week follow-up, but this did not differ significantly between the two conditions. Perseverative thinking was negatively associated with changes in anxiety, depression and stress, but did not moderate any writing effects. Conclusions. Written benefit finding may be a useful intervention for improving wellbeing, specifically state anxiety, in the general population.

It has been a decade since the WEIRD label was coined in psychology but little seems to have changed. I contend that one of the reasons is the invisibility of researchers from peripheral (henceforth non-WEIRD) countries, which has been unintended reinforced by the vagueness of the label and subsequent discussions on high profile journals. Moreover, I argue that, by only focusing on diversifying samples instead the research community, well intended researchers may worsen several structural problems in these communities. In this commentary I hope to present compelling evidence in support of these two arguments and offer suggestions on how we can attempt to overcome the invisibility of non-WEIRD scientists.

Objective To estimate the infection fatality risk for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), based on deaths with confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) and excess deaths from all causes.Design Nationwide seroepidemiological study.Setting First wave of covid-19 pandemic in Spain.Participants Community dwelling individuals of all ages.Main outcome measures The main outcome measure was overall, and age and sex specific, infection fatality risk for SARS-CoV-2 (the number of covid-19 deaths and excess deaths divided by the estimated number of SARS-CoV-2 infections) in the community dwelling Spanish population. Deaths with laboratory confirmed covid-19 were obtained from the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network (RENAVE) and excess all cause deaths from the Monitoring Mortality System (MoMo), up to 15 July 2020. SARS-CoV-2 infections in Spain were derived from the estimated seroprevalence by a chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay for IgG antibodies in 61 098 participants in the ENE-COVID nationwide seroepidemiological survey between 27 April and 22 June 2020.Results The overall infection fatality risk was 0.8% (19 228 of 2.3 million infected individuals, 95% confidence interval 0.8% to 0.9%) for confirmed covid-19 deaths and 1.1% (24 778 of 2.3 million infected individuals, 1.0% to 1.2%) for excess deaths. The infection fatality risk was 1.1% (95% confidence interval 1.0% to 1.2%) to 1.4% (1.3% to 1.5%) in men and 0.6% (0.5% to 0.6%) to 0.8% (0.7% to 0.8%) in women. The infection fatality risk increased sharply after age 50, ranging from 11.6% (8.1% to 16.5%) to 16.4% (11.4% to 23.2%) in men aged 80 or more and from 4.6% (3.4% to 6.3%) to 6.5% (4.7% to 8.8%) in women aged 80 or more.Conclusion The increase in SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality risk after age 50 appeared to be more noticeable in men than in women. Based on the results of this study, fatality from covid-19 was greater than that reported for other common respiratory diseases, such as seasonal influenza.

Many challenges faced by humans require large-scale cooperation for communal benefits. We examined what motivates such cooperation in the context of social distancing and mask wearing to reduce the transmission intensity of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). We hypothesized that collectivism, a cultural variable characterizing the extent that individuals see themselves in relation to others, contributes to people’s willingness to engage in these behaviors. Consistent with preregistered predictions, across three studies (n=2864), including a U.S. nationally representative sample, people’s collectivist orientation is positively associated with intentions, positive beliefs, norm perceptions, and policy support for the preventive behaviors. In separate analyses at the country level (n=69 countries), more collectivist countries demonstrated lower growth rate in both COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. Together, these studies demonstrate the positive role of collectivism at the individual- and country-level in reducing COVID-19 transmission, and highlight the need to consider culture in public health policies and communications.

France’s coronavirus test positivity rate, at 11.1 percent, is nearly four times that of New York City.And yet schools across France have remained open during the latest lockdown, in sharp contrast to New York City, which closed schools after its average test positivity rate climbed to 3 percent before abruptly deciding to reopen elementary schools over the weekend.

Humans exhibit distinct risk preferences when facing choices involving potential gains and losses. These preferences are subject to neuromodulatory influence, particularly from dopamine and serotonin. As these neuromodulators manifest distinct circadian rhythms, this suggests decision making under risk might be affected by time of day. Here, in a large subject sample (N = 26,899), we tested the hypothesis of a diurnal modulation in risk taking for gains and losses. We found that risky options with potential losses were increasingly chosen over the course of the day, but observed no such change for how often risky options with only potential gains were chosen. Using a computational modelling approach to obtain a more fine-grained account, we show this diurnal change in risk preference reflects a decrease in sensitivity to increasing losses, but no change in the relative impacts of gains and losses on choice. This diurnal sensitivity, present across two different task designs, was robust to between- and within-subject analysis, to country (i.e., UK and US samples), age, and gender. Thus, our findings reveal a striking diurnal modulation in human decision making, a pattern with potential importance for real-life preferences that include voting, medical decision making, and global stock market investments.

Planetary health sees neoliberal capitalism as a key mediator of socioecological crises, a position that is echoed in much COVID-19 commentary. In this Personal View, I set out an economic theory that emphasises some of the ways in which neoliberal capitalism's conceptualisation of value has mediated responses to COVID-19. Using the intersection of ecological, feminist, and Marxist economics, I develop an analysis of neoliberal capitalism as a specific historical form of the economy. I identify the accumulation of exchange value as a central tendency of neoliberal capitalism and argue that this tendency creates barriers to the production of other forms of value. I then analyse the implications of this tendency in the context of responses to COVID-19. I argue that resources and labour flow to the production of exchange value, at the expense of production of other value forms. Consequently, the global capitalist economy has unprecedented productive capacity but uses little of this capacity to create the conditions that improve and maintain people's health. To be more resilient to coming crises, academics, policy makers, and activists should do theoretical work that enables global economies to recognise multiple forms of value and political work that embeds these theories in societal institutions.

NEW THREAD: possible development of anti-Syncytin responses after immunization with the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-coding mRNA vaccines, based on a "homologous" region shared between these proteins.

By early June, scarred and battered, Europe was emerging from the depths of its fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Strict lockdowns in most countries had lifted health care systems off their knees, just as the United States and others were fighting record caseloads. The weather was warming up, the European Union was encouraging borders to reopen and Europeans were desperate for a break. They paid dearly for it. A devastating second wave has forced reluctant governments back into lockdowns or restrictions and inflicted new scars on European economies. The optimism of the summer is gone, replaced with the realization that loosening precautions led to thousands of deaths just months before vaccines may arrive.

As we closed last year (and the last decade), we put out a call to help us imagine the next decade of behavioral science. We asked you to share your hopes and fears, predictions and warnings, open questions and big ideas.  We received over 120 submissions from behavioral scientists around the world. We picked the most thought-provoking submissions and curated them below.

As the UK struggles to contain the coronavirus crisis, Richard Horton says the government should have implemented strict lockdowns as soon as infections rose.

We read with interest the article by Estella Ektorp, which describes the death threats received by Marcus Lacerda following a trial on chloroquine for COVID-19 in Brazil.1Ektorp E Death threats after a trial on chloroquine for COVID-19.Lancet Infect Dis. 2020; 20: 661Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar We give Lacerda our full support and herein report our experience in France and Switzerland following publication of a meta-analysis2Fiolet T Guihur A Rebeaud ME Mulot M Peiffer-Smadja N Mahamat-Saleh Y Effect of hydroxychloroquine with or without azithromycin on the mortality of COVID-19 patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Clin Microbiol Infect. 2020; (published online Aug 26.)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2020.08.022Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar on hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, for COVID-19.The meta-analysis included 11 932 participants treated with hydroxychloroquine, 8081 with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, and 12 930 patients in a control group. Hydroxychloroquine was not significantly associated with mortality: pooled relative risk (RR) was 0·83 (95% CI 0·65–1·06) across all 17 studies and 1·09 (0·97–1·24) across three randomised controlled trials. Hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin was associated with increased mortality (RR 1·27, 95% CI 1·04–1·54; seven studies).

As the UK enters a winter wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, our understanding of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to evolve. However, what is strikingly clear from early data is the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on elderly, socioeconomically deprived, and ethnic minority groups, both in the UK and globally.1Aldridge RW Lewer D Katikireddi SV et al.Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups in England are at increased risk of death from COVID-19: indirect standardisation of NHS mortality data.Wellcome Open Res. 2020; 5: 88Crossref PubMed Google Scholar,  2Chen J Krieger N Revealing the unequal burden of COVID-19 by income, race/ethnicity, and household crowding: US county versus zip code analyses.J Public Health Manag Pract. 2020; (published online Sept 9.)https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000001263Crossref PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar Rapid analyses of large-scale population-based data show increased risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and poor outcomes in these groups.3Niedzwiedz CL O'Donnell CA Jani BD et al.Ethnic and socioeconomic differences in SARS-CoV-2 infection: prospective cohort study using UK Biobank.BMC Med. 2020; 18: 160Crossref PubMed Scopus (37) Google Scholar,  4Mathur R Rentsch CT Morton C et al.Ethnic differences in COVID-19 infection, hospitalisation, and mortality: an OpenSAFELY analysis of 17 million adults in England.MedRxiv. 2020; (published online Sept 23.) (preprint)https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20198754Google ScholarThe intersecting effects of occupation, community interactions, household environments, and structural racism are key drivers of excess exposure to SARS-CoV-2 among ethnic minorities.5Ethnicity sub-group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)Drivers of the higher COVID-19 incidence, morbidity and mortality among minority ethnic groups.https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925135/S0778_Drivers_of_the_higher_COVID-19_incidence__morbidity_and_mortality_among_minority_ethnic_groups.pdfDate: 2020Date accessed: November 12, 2020Google Scholar Ethnic minority groups in the UK typically have higher occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-26Office for National StatisticsCoronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by occupation, England and Wales.https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbyoccupationenglandandwales/deathsregisteredbetween9marchand25may2020Date: June 25, 2020Date accessed: November 12, 2020Google Scholar and reduced opportunity to work from home. Transmission of infectious diseases is known to be more intense in densely populated and deprived areas, and within closely interconnected social networks. Highly socially and physically connected households with extended kinship and social support ties are generally more common in ethnic minority communities.7Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on BehavioursSPI-B: well-being and household connection: the behavioural considerations of “bubbles”. Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, May 14, 2020https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-b-well-being-and-household-connection-the-behavioural-considerations-of-bubbles-14-may-2020Date accessed: November 12, 2020Google Scholar Furthermore, many of these households are multigenerational, with older age adults, working age adults, and children living together.8UK GovernmentFamilies and households.https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/demographics/families-and-households/latestDate: April 3, 2019Date accessed: November 4, 2020Google Scholar Multigenerational living can intensify transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and efforts to isolate vulnerable or older individuals can be difficult, especially when combined with overcrowded living conditions

Cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reinfection have been reported in Hong Kong, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the USA.1To KK-W Hung IF-N Ip JD et al.COVID-19 re-infection by a phylogenetically distinct SARS-coronavirus-2 strain confirmed by whole genome sequencing.Clin Infect Dis. 2020; (published online Aug 25.)https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1275Crossref Google Scholar,  2Tillett RL Sevinsky JR Hartley PD et al.Genomic evidence for reinfection with SARS-CoV-2: a case study.Lancet Infect Dis. 2020; (published online Oct 12.)https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30764-7Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (33) Google Scholar,  3Iwasaki A What reinfections mean for COVID-19.Lancet Infect Dis. 2020; (published online Oct 12.)https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30783-0Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (12) Google Scholar,  4Mulder M van der Vegt DSJM Oude Munnink BB et al.Reinfection of SARS-CoV-2 in an immunocompromised patient: a case report.Clin Infect Dis. 2020; (published online Oct 9.)https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1538Crossref Google Scholar Here we report the first confirmed case of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in Ecuador and South America.

IN EARLY November, covid-19 cases in Europe were surging, accounting for almost half the world’s new cases and deaths. Now many in the region are emerging from a second round of lockdowns, including England on 2 December and soon France on 15 December. So how well did they work, and which countries got them right?

Racism, climate denial, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are major crises standing in the way of a prosperous future for the United States, and resolution of all three could be enabled by science that is persistently ignored. In Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises, a character named Mike is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he answers. “Gradually, then suddenly.” The resistance of U.S. policy to science has followed a similar path: It gradually built up over 40 years, beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan, but suddenly reached a tipping point in the chaos of 2020. Will the path to resolution also be gradual and then sudden, and if so, at what cost?

The pandemic has created a tragic ‘natural experiment’ - a once-in-a-century jolt that could produce unexpected insights

The concept is not only impractical, it creates a ‘them and us’ mentality. Everyone’s health matters, or no one’s health matters

Ministers did not suppress the virus, and now a new variant is surging in the south-east of England

The surge of new cases in October is concentrated in colder, less populated, more Republican-leaning counties. Places that suffered springtime or summer surges have more cases in October, adjusted for other factors.

“FORTUNATE” isn’t a word that often comes up in relation to the coronavirus pandemic, but in one respect it is true. In the nine months that the virus behind covid-19 has been circulating widely, it has hardly mutated at all. “We are fortunate that the virus is not mutating fast,” says Sudhir Kumar at Temple University in Pennsylvania. A rapidly mutating virus could evolve into different, possibly more virulent, strains. “So it’s good to have a low diversity” among the viruses currently circulating, he says.

The rapid global spread of COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented demand for effective methods to mitigate the spread of the disease, and various digital contact tracing (DCT) methods have emerged as a component of the solution. In order to make informed public health choices, there is a need for tools which allow evaluation and comparison of DCT methods. We introduce an agent-based compartmental simulator we call COVI-AgentSim, integrating detailed consideration of virology, disease progression, social contact networks, and mobility patterns, based on parameters derived from empirical research. We verify by comparing to real data that COVI-AgentSim is able to reproduce realistic COVID-19 spread dynamics, and perform a sensitivity analysis to verify that the relative performance of contact tracing methods are consistent across a range of settings. We use COVI-AgentSim to perform cost-benefit analyses comparing no DCT to: 1) standard binary contact tracing (BCT) that assigns binary recommendations based on binary test results; and 2) a rule-based method for feature-based contact tracing (FCT) that assigns a graded level of recommendation based on diverse individual features. We find all DCT methods consistently reduce the spread of the disease, and that the advantage of FCT over BCT is maintained over a wide range of adoption rates. Feature-based methods of contact tracing avert more disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per socioeconomic cost (measured by productive hours lost). Our results suggest any DCT method can help save lives, support re-opening of economies, and prevent second-wave outbreaks, and that FCT methods are a promising direction for enriching BCT using self-reported symptoms, yielding earlier warning signals and a significantly reduced spread of the virus per socioeconomic cost.

Despite considerable social scientific attention to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on urbanized areas, very little research has examined its impact on rural populations. Yet rural communities—which make up tens of millions of people from diverse backgrounds in the United States—are among the nation’s most vulnerable populations and may be less resilient to the effects of such a large-scale exogenous shock. We address this critical knowledge gap with data from a new survey designed to assess the impacts of the pandemic on health-related and economic dimensions of rural well-being in the North American West. Notably, we find that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural populations have been severe, with significant negative impacts on unemployment, overall life satisfaction, mental health, and economic outlook. Further, we find that these impacts have been generally consistent across age, ethnicity, education, and sex. We discuss how these findings constitute the beginning of a much larger interdisciplinary COVID-19 research effort that integrates rural areas and pushes beyond the predominant focus on cities and nation-states.

Over the last two decades, alongside the increased availability of large network datasets, we have witnessed the rapid rise of network science. For many systems, however, the data we have access to is not a direct description of the underlying network. More and more, we see the drive to study networks that have been inferred or reconstructed from non-network data---in particular, using time series data from the nodes in a system to infer likely connections between them. Selecting the most appropriate technique for this task is a challenging problem in network science. Different reconstruction techniques usually have different assumptions, and their performance varies from system to system in the real world. One way around this problem could be to use several different reconstruction techniques and compare the resulting networks. However, network comparison is also not an easy problem, as it is not obvious how best to quantify the differences between two networks, in part because of the diversity of tools for doing so. The netrd Python package seeks to address these two parallel problems in network science by providing, to our knowledge, the most extensive collection of both network reconstruction techniques and network comparison techniques (often referred to as graph distances) in a single library (this https URL). In this article, we detail the two main functionalities of the netrd package. Along the way, we describe some of its other useful features. This package builds on commonly used Python packages and is already a widely used resource for network scientists and other multidisciplinary researchers. With ongoing open-source development, we see this as a tool that will continue to be used by all sorts of researchers to come.

Among groups at higher risk of dying from COVID-19, such as people with diabetes, people with DS stand out: If infected, they are five times more likely to be hospitalized and 10 times more likely to die than the general population, according to a large U.K. study published in October. Other recent studies back up the high risk.

I'm a global health researcher working to address health and gender inequalities in the Global South. During my work in areas where Malaria or Dengue Fever are endemic, I always took extra precautions to avoid getting infected. I never anticipated that while living in a large, urban city from Canada I would be at higher risk… Until the COVID-19 pandemic.

People worldwide have been waking up an hour later than normal during the coronavirus pandemic. Data collected from 100,000 users of a sleep-tracking app, Sleep as Android, from countries around the globe provides a snapshot of how sleeping patterns have shifted. Users toggle the app on and off as they go to bed and wake up.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the effects could be potentially devastating to global democracy and the upcoming U.S. election. On the World Class podcast, Larry Diamond and Nathaniel Persily discuss what needs to be done to ensure a healthy election in November with host Michael McFaul.

Scientists have identified a collection of drugs with the potential to benefit tens of thousands of patients who are admitted to intensive care with life-threatening coronavirus infections. The breakthrough emerged from a major study of critically ill patients that revealed a suite of genes involved in antiviral defences and lung inflammation that leave people at greater risk of developing severe Covid disease.