Limiting our counting of virus mortalities to those who were previously in the peak of health is to court a deep and ruinous belief

Experts say threat could lead to anxious pupils returning to class before they are ready

Pre-pandemic, about half of U.S. families reported having trouble finding care for a young child. That number jumped to nearly two-thirds this spring as day cares closed and other caretakers, such as grandparents and nannies, were told to stay home. And with many schools operating remotely, in a hybrid model or abruptly changing course this fall, many more parents, including those with kids in elementary school and beyond, are grappling with a child care crisis.

In the dog days of August, air conditioning is everywhere. Is that a problem when it comes to the spread of the coronavirus? The answer to that question rests on the way the virus is transmitted — a topic that is still being researched.

A report into the global response to coronavirus outbreaks has heavily criticised the “alarming living conditions” in Belgian and Spanish care homes, the former being described as a “true humanitarian crisis.”The report,1 by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), documents the first phase of the non-governmental organisation’s global covid-19 response from March until May. During that time it committed “substantial resources” both to developing dedicated covid-19 projects and to maintaining essential healthcare in its existing programmes worldwide, including interventions in Italy, Spain, Belgium, and France.Operations in the four European countries included projects supporting retirement and nursing homes, hospitals, and primary healthcare facilities, as well as providing protection and care to vulnerable groups in reception facilities, refugee camps, homeless shelters, and prisons. Smaller projects were set up in Portugal, the UK, and Switzerland.But it was Belgium and Spain where the living conditions—as well as the lack of protective equipment and sufficient personnel and the enormous emotional burden on caregivers in care homes—caused high concern. This led MSF to alert national authorities on “several occasions.”

Parents should be "reassured" Covid-19 has not caused the deaths of any otherwise healthy schoolchildren in the UK, researchers say.

New open-source technology lets eLife authors publish Executable Research Articles that treat live code and data as first-class citizens.

Physical distancing should be seen as only one part of a wider public health approach.

The coronavirus has caused more than 80,000 deaths in the United States in just four months. Shira Shafir ’99, professor of epidemiology, warns that as in the 1918–19 influenza epidemic a second wave of infections in the COVID-19 crisis could cause more deaths than the first.

How are children, including the most vulnerable, coping with the covid19 pandemic and home schooling? Will the covid-19 pandemic have longer term effects on our education systems? What impact has the pandemic had on adolescents' rites of passage?

As part of our new series on expertise and COVID-19, Mike Kenny and Anna Alexandrova interview Professor Erik Angner of Stockholm University. Erik is a philosopher and an economist writing on behavioral economics, economists as experts, measurement of happiness and wellbeing, Hayek, and the nature of preferences among other topics. Recently he has commented on the need for epistemic humility and the uniqueness of the Swedish response to the pandemic. In the podcast we discuss cultures of expertise, contestation, politics of behavioral science, and the relation of all three to the current crisis:

CODECHECK certificate for paper: The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 cases, deaths and demand for hospital services in the UK: a modelling study

Although the benefit of population-level public facial masking to protect others during the COVID-19 pandemic has received a great deal of attention, we discuss for one of the first times the hypothesis that universal masking reduces the “inoculum” or dose of the virus for the mask-wearer, leading to more mild and asymptomatic infection manifestations. Masks, depending on type, filter out the majority of viral particles, but not all. We first discuss the near-century-old literature around the viral inoculum and severity of disease (conceptualized as the LD50 or lethal dose of the virus). We include examples of rising rates of asymptomatic infection with population-level masking, including in closed settings (e.g., cruise ships) with and without universal masking. Asymptomatic infections may be harmful for spread but could actually be beneficial if they lead to higher rates of exposure. Exposing society to SARS-CoV-2 without the unacceptable consequences of severe illness with public masking could lead to greater community-level immunity and slower spread as we await a vaccine. This theory of viral inoculum and mild or asymptomatic disease with SARS-CoV-2 in light of population-level masking has received little attention so this is one of the first perspectives to discuss the evidence supporting this theory.

Physical distancing is an important part of measures to control covid-19, but exactly how far away and for how long contact is safe in different contexts is unclear. Rules that stipulate a single specific physical distance (1 or 2 metres) between individuals to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing covid-19, are based on an outdated, dichotomous notion of respiratory droplet size. This overlooks the physics of respiratory emissions, where droplets of all sizes are trapped and moved by the exhaled moist and hot turbulent gas cloud that keeps them concentrated as it carries them over metres in a few seconds.12 After the cloud slows sufficiently, ventilation, specific patterns of airflow, and type of activity become important. Viral load of the emitter, duration of exposure, and susceptibility of an individual to infection are also important.Instead of single, fixed physical distance rules, we propose graded recommendations that better reflect the multiple factors that combine to determine risk. This would provide greater protection in the highest risk settings but also greater freedom in lower risk settings, potentially enabling a return towards normality in some aspects of social and economic life.

Despite the widespread implementation of public health measures, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread in the United States. To facilitate an agile response to the pandemic, we developed How We Feel, a web and mobile application that collects longitudinal self-reported survey responses on health, behaviour and demographics. Here, we report results from over 500,000 users in the United States from 2 April 2020 to 12 May 2020. We show that self-reported surveys can be used to build predictive models to identify likely COVID-19-positive individuals. We find evidence among our users for asymptomatic or presymptomatic presentation; show a variety of exposure, occupational and demographic risk factors for COVID-19 beyond symptoms; reveal factors for which users have been SARS-CoV-2 PCR tested; and highlight the temporal dynamics of symptoms and self-isolation behaviour. These results highlight the utility of collecting a diverse set of symptomatic, demographic, exposure and behavioural self-reported data to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regional quarantine policies, in which a portion of a population surrounding infections are locked down, are an important tool to contain disease. However, jurisdictional governments - such as cities, counties, states, and countries - act with minimal coordination across borders. We show that a regional quarantine policy's effectiveness depends upon whether (i) the network of interactions satisfies a balanced-growth condition, (ii) infections have a short delay in detection, and (iii) the government has control over and knowledge of the necessary parts of the network (no leakage of behaviors). As these conditions generally fail to be satisfied, especially when interactions cross borders, we show that substantial improvements are possible if governments are proactive: triggering quarantines in reaction to neighbors' infection rates, in some cases even before infections are detected internally. We also show that even a few lax governments - those that wait for nontrivial internal infection rates before quarantining - impose substantial costs on the whole system. Our results illustrate the importance of understanding contagion across policy borders and offer a starting point in designing proactive policies for decentralized jurisdictions.

Social distancing measures following the outbreak of COVID-19 have led to a rapid shift to virtual and telephone care. Social workers and mental health providers in VA home-based primary care (HBPC) teams face challenges providing psychosocial support to their homebound, medically complex, socially isolated patient population who are high risk for poor health outcomes related to COVID-19. We developed and disseminated an 8-week telephone or virtual group intervention for front-line HBPC social workers and mental health providers to use with socially isolated, medically complex older adults. The intervention draws on skills from evidence-based psychotherapies for older adults including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, and Problem-Solving Therapy. The manual was disseminated to VA HBPC clinicians and geriatrics providers across the United States in March 2020 for expeditious implementation. Eighteen HBPC teams and three VA Primary Care teams reported immediate delivery of a local virtual or telephone group using the manual. In this paper we describe the manual’s development and clinical recommendations for its application across geriatric care settings. Future evaluation will identify ways to meet longer-term social isolation and evolving mental health needs for this patient population as the pandemic continues.

Numerous anecdotal reports suggest that domestic violence has increased globally since the COVID-19 pandemic, but rarely are there cross-country empirical support for this claim. Using two unique datasets which comprises official domestic violence data from Southern China (N = 152 daily data points from January 1st to May 31st, 2020) and Google Trends data across four English-speaking countries (i.e., Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States; N = 728 daily data points from January 1st to June 30th, 2020), we test the association between daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 and daily reports of domestic violence. We find that daily new cases are positively associated with domestic violence in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, but not in China. However, one nuance of our findings in China is that this association is lagged. We speculate that it is because that China is the first to experience the pandemic during which many people were not acutely aware of or affected by COVID-19. These findings suggest that the COVID-19 health toll is beyond its direct costs on its infectees and provide insights into social policies on public health crises. Governments need to balance their COVID-19 responses with corresponding assistance toward women and children who might be at risk of domestic violence in this difficult time.

Blue J, the leading provider of AI-backed legal predictions, announced today the launch of its COVID-19 relief programs and credits guided analysis tools for the United States and Canada. Read More: DataRooms.com Embeds the dtSearch Engine to Enable Instant Searching across Terabytes of Virtual Data Room Content The COVID-19 tools help individuals and organizations identify the available relief programs and credits for which they may be eligible. Frequently updated to help users make relevant and timely decisions, the tools provide direct links outlining contact information, eligibility criteria and application process.

As the COVID-19 pandemic escalates in Canada and around the world, businesses are taking steps to help flatten the curve and support customers through new products, services, and free offerings. This list will outline what Canadian tech companies are offering during the outbreak. The list will be updated each Friday as more information comes in. Reach out via email so BetaKit can add to the list.

The pressing need to restart socioeconomic activities locked-down to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy must be coupled with effective methodologies to selectively relax containment measures. Here we employ a spatially explicit model, properly attentive to the role of inapparent infections, capable of: estimating the expected unfolding of the outbreak under continuous lockdown (baseline trajectory); assessing deviations from the baseline, should lockdown relaxations result in increased disease transmission; calculating the isolation effort required to prevent a resurgence of the outbreak. A 40% increase in effective transmission would yield a rebound of infections. A control effort capable of isolating daily  ~5.5% of the exposed and highly infectious individuals proves necessary to maintain the epidemic curve onto the decreasing baseline trajectory. We finally provide an ex-post assessment based on the epidemiological data that became available after the initial analysis and estimate the actual disease transmission that occurred after weakening the lockdown.

Many countries have passed their first COVID-19 epidemic peak. Traditional epidemiological models describe this as a result of nonpharmaceutical interventions pushing the growth rate below the recovery rate. In this phase of the pandemic many countries showed an almost linear growth of confirmed cases for extended time periods. This new containment regime is hard to explain by traditional models where either infection numbers grow explosively until herd immunity is reached or the epidemic is completely suppressed. Here we offer an explanation of this puzzling observation based on the structure of contact networks. We show that for any given transmission rate there exists a critical number of social contacts, DcDc<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>D</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>c</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:math>, below which linear growth and low infection prevalence must occur. Above DcDc<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>D</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>c</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:math> traditional epidemiological dynamics take place, e.g., as in susceptible–infected–recovered (SIR) models. When calibrating our model to empirical estimates of the transmission rate and the number of days being contagious, we find Dc∼7.2Dc∼7.2<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>D</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>c</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mo>∼</mml:mo><mml:mn>7.2</mml:mn></mml:math>. Assuming realistic contact networks with a degree of about 5, and assuming that lockdown measures would reduce that to household size (about 2.5), we reproduce actual infection curves with remarkable precision, without fitting or fine-tuning of parameters. In particular, we compare the United States and Austria, as examples for one country that initially did not impose measures and one that responded with a severe lockdown early on. Our findings question the applicability of standard compartmental models to describe the COVID-19 containment phase. The probability to observe linear growth in these is practically zero.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments imposed lockdowns that forced hundred millions to stay at home. As a result of these measures, Internet traffic of residential users increased, in particular, for remote working, entertainment, commerce, and education. In turn, traffic demands in the Internet core shifted as well. In this paper, using data from a diverse set of vantage points (one ISP, three IXPs, and one metropolitan educational network), we study the effect of these lockdowns on traffic shifts. We find that the traffic volume increased by 15-20% almost within a week--while overall still modest, this constitutes a large increase within this short time period. The Internet infrastruct ure is able to handle this increase, as most traffic shifts occur outside of traditional peak hours. When looking at traffic sources, we find that while hypergiants still contribute a significant fraction of traffic, we see a higher increase in traffic of non-hypergiants. We observe traffic increases in applications such as Web conferencing, VPN, gaming, messaging that people use when at home. While many networks see increased traffic demands, in particular, residential users, others see major decreases, e.g., the in/out ratio of the educational network switched.

The public health response to COVID-19 in India has been highly centralised, resulting in a homogenous strategy applied across a sixth of the world's population. India was placed in a nationwide lockdown on March 24, 2020, with restrictions being relaxed in three phases since June. In May 2020, the prime minister called upon the Indian people to be self-reliant. We discuss here opportunities to modify several aspects of the medical response to echo this sentiment.

After a woman with the coronavirus visited a Starbucks cafe north of Seoul this month, more than two dozen patrons tested positive days later. But the four face mask-wearing employees escaped infection.The Aug. 8 outbreak in the South Korean city of Paju is another example of how rapidly the SARS-CoV-2 virus can spread in confined, indoor spaces -- as well as ways to minimize transmission. With health authorities around the world still debating the evidence around face masks, the 27-person cluster linked to the air-conditioned coffee outlet adds more support for their mandatory use to help limit the spread of the Covid-19-causing virus.

Science is undergoing a crisis that has been referred to, since the early 21st century, as a crisis of confidence and a crisis of replication. This article reviews questions pertaining to the replication crisis; questions addressing the quality and credibility of the sciences; specifically, questions linked to what are known as false positives, null results, and questionable research practices (p‐hacking, harking, cherry‐picking). As an outcome of our review and analysis, a set of recommendations to strengthen the elaboration of reliable and valid research studies is provided. Changes are needed in order to foment meta‐research, open science practices and replication studies; notably, changes are needed in the instruction of research methods; in the use and interpretation of statistical data, as well as in research culture in general. We conclude that the replication crisis presents an opportunity to improve research practices and the quality of scientific production in all fields of research, including research in education.

Benjamin Thompson, Noah Baker, and Amy Maxmen discuss Trump withholding funds from the WHO, and how COVID-19 kills. We also hear about controlling misinformation while communicating risk.

What do we know about how we are coping with the pandemic crisis? David Aaronovitch looks at the impact the three month lockdown has had on people in China and asks how different groups in the UK - just three weeks in - are faring. What are the particular difficulties faced by the most vulnerable and those who have been advised to self isolate, maybe for many months, during the pandemic? He asks what strategies can be put in place to reduce mental hardship now and in the coming weeks. And when normality resumes, how changed might we be?

A novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 has been pandemic worldwide. The genetic dynamics of quasispecies afford RNA viruses a great fitness on cell tropism and host range. However, no quasispecies data of SARS-CoV-2 have been reported yet. To explore quasispecies haplotypes and its transmission characteristics, we carried out single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing of the full-length of SARS-CoV-2 spike gene within 14 RNA samples from 2 infection clusters, covering first-to third-generation infected-patients. We observed a special quasispecies structure of SARS-CoV-2 (modeled as ‘One-King’): one dominant haplotype (mean abundance ~70.15%) followed by numerous minor haplotypes (mean abundance < 0.10%). We not only discovered a novel dominant haplotype of F1040 but also realized that minor quasispecies were also worthy of attention. Notably, some minor haplotypes (like F1040 and currently pandemic one G614) could potentially reveal adaptive and converse into the dominant one. However, minor haplotypes exhibited a high transmission bottleneck (~6% could be stably transmitted), and the new adaptive/dominant haplotypes were likely originated from genetic variations within a host rather than transmission. The evolutionary rate was estimated as 2.68-3.86 × 10−3 per site per year, which was larger than the estimation at consensus genome level. The ‘One-King’ model and conversion event expanded our understanding of the genetic dynamics of SARS-CoV-2, and explained the incomprehensible phenomenon at the consensus genome level, such as limited cumulative mutations and low evolutionary rate. Moreover, our findings suggested the epidemic strains may be multi-host origin and future traceability would face huge difficulties.

This article reports on a non-invasive approach in detecting and following-up individuals who are at-risk or have an existing COVID-19 infection, with a potential ability to serve as an epidemic control tool. The proposed method uses a developed breath device comprised of a nanomaterial-based hybrid sensors array with multiplexed detection capabilities that can detect disease-specific biomarkers from exhaled breath, thus enabling rapid and accurate diagnosis. An exploratory clinical study with this approach was examined in Wuhan, China during March 2020. The study cohort included 49 confirmed COVID-19 patients, 58 healthy controls and 33 non-COVID lung infection controls. When applicable, positive COVID-19 patients were sampled twice: during the active disease, and after recovery. Discriminant analysis of the obtained signals from the nanomaterial-based sensors achieved very good test discriminations between the different groups. The training and test set data exhibited, respectively, 94% and 76% accuracy in differentiating patients from controls as well as 90% and 95% accuracy in differentiating between patients with COVID-19 and patients with other lung infections. While further validation studies are needed, the results may serve as a base for technology that would lead to a reduction in number of unneeded confirmatory tests and lower the burden on the hospitals, while allowing individuals a screening solution that can be performed in PoC facilities. The proposed method can be considered as a platform that could be applied for any other disease infection with proper modifications to the artificial intelligence and would therefore be available to serve as a diagnostic tool in case of a new disease outbreak.

The efficacy of glucocorticoids in COVID-19 is unclear. This study was designed to determine whether systemic glucocorticoid treatment in COVID-19 patients is associated with reduced mortality or mechanical ventilation. This observational study included 1,806 hospitalized COVID-19 patients; 140 were treated with glucocorticoids within 48 hours of admission. Early use of glucocorticoids was not associated with mortality or mechanical ventilation. However, glucocorticoid treatment of patients with initial C-reactive protein (CRP) ≥20 mg/dL was associated with significantly reduced risk of mortality or mechanical ventilation (odds ratio, 0.23; 95% CI, 0.08-0.70), while glucocorticoid treatment of patients with CRP <10 mg/dL was associated with significantly increased risk of mortality or mechanical ventilation (OR, 2.64; 95% CI, 1.39-5.03). Whether glucocorticoid treatment is associated with changes in mortality or mechanical ventilation in patients with high or low CRP needs study in prospective, randomized clinical trials.

The human microbiota has a close relationship with human disease and it remodels components of the glycocalyx including heparan sulfate (HS). Studies of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein receptor binding domain suggest that infection requires binding to HS and angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in a codependent manner. Here, we show that commensal host bacterial communities can modify HS and thereby modulate SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binding and that these communities change with host age and sex. Common human-associated commensal bacteria whose genomes encode HS-modifying enzymes were identified. The prevalence of these bacteria and the expression of key microbial glycosidases in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was lower in adult COVID-19 patients than in healthy controls. The presence of HS-modifying bacteria decreased with age in two large survey datasets, FINRISK 2002 and American Gut, revealing one possible mechanism for the observed increase in COVID-19 susceptibility with age. In vitro, bacterial glycosidases from unpurified culture media supernatants fully blocked SARS-CoV-2 spike binding to human H1299 protein lung adenocarcinoma cells. HS-modifying bacteria in human microbial communities may regulate viral adhesion, and loss of these commensals could predispose individuals to infection. Understanding the impact of shifts in microbial community composition and bacterial lyases on SARS-CoV-2 infection may lead to new therapeutics and diagnosis of susceptibility.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a mild to moderate respiratory tract infection, however, a subset of patients progress to severe disease and respiratory failure. The mechanism of protective immunity in mild forms and the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19 associated with increased neutrophil counts and dysregulated immune responses remain unclear. In a dual-center, two-cohort study, we combined single-cell RNA-sequencing and single-cell proteomics of whole-blood and peripheral-blood mononuclear cells to determine changes in immune cell composition and activation in mild versus severe COVID-19 (242 samples from 109 individuals) over time. HLA-DRhiCD11chi inflammatory monocytes with an interferon-stimulated gene signature were elevated in mild COVID-19. Severe COVID-19 was marked by occurrence of neutrophil precursors, as evidence of emergency myelopoiesis, dysfunctional mature neutrophils, and HLA-DRlo monocytes. Our study provides detailed insights into the systemic immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and reveals profound alterations in the myeloid cell compartment associated with severe COVID-19.

Understanding the mechanism that leads to immune dysfunction induced by SARS-CoV2 virus is crucial to develop treatment for severe COVID-19. Here, using single cell RNA-seq, we characterized the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from uninfected controls and COVID-19 patients, and cells in paired broncho-alveolar lavage fluid (BALF). We found a close association of decreased dendritic cells (DC) and increased monocytes resembling myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) which correlated with lymphopenia and inflammation in the blood of severe COVID-19 patients. Those MDSC-like monocytes were immune-paralyzed. In contrast, monocyte-macrophages in BALFs of COVID-19 patients produced massive amounts of cytokines and chemokines, but secreted little interferons. The frequencies of peripheral T cells and NK cells were significantly decreased in severe COVID-19 patients, especially for innate-like T and various CD8+ T cell subsets, compared to health controls. In contrast, the proportions of various activated CD4+ T cell subsets, including Th1, Th2 and Th17-like cells were increased and more clonally expanded in severe COVID-19 patients. Patients' peripheral T cells showed no sign of exhaustion or augmented cell death, whereas T cells in BALFs produced higher levels of IFNG, TNF, CCL4 and CCL5 etc. Paired TCR tracking indicated abundant recruitment of peripheral T cells to the patients' lung. Together, this study comprehensively depicts how the immune cell landscape is perturbed in severe COVID-19.

Background: Healthcare systems globally has been challenged following the COVID-19 pandemic, since late 2019. Multiple approaches and strategies have been performed to relieve the pressure and support existing healthcare systems. The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) launched an initiative to support the National Healthcare System. Since the 5th of June 2020, 238 outpatient fever clinics were established across Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study included 2,733 eligible patients subjected to MOH treatment protocol (hydroxychloroquine and zinc) and revisited the clinics within 3-7 days after treatment initiation. This study aimed to assess the safety outcome and reported adverse events from hydroxychloroquine use among suspected COVID-19 patients. The data was collected through an electronic link and cross-checked with that of the national database (Health Electronic Surveillance Network, HESN) and reports from the MOH Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) Committee. Results: Majority of the cases were males (70.4%). Upon reassessing the studied participants within 3-7 days, 240 patients (8.8%) discontinued the treatment protocol because of the development of side effects (4.1%) and for non-clinical reasons in the remaining (4.7%). Medication side effects overall were reported among (6.7%) of all studied participants, including mainly cardiovascular adverse events (2.5%), followed by gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms (2.4%). No Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission or death were reported among these patients. Conclusion: In our study, results show that the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients in mild to moderate cases in an outpatient setting, within the protocol recommendation and inclusion/exclusion criteria, is safe, highly tolerable, and with minimum side effects.

COVID-19 is characterized by an infectious pre-symptomatic period, when newly infected individuals can unwittingly infect others. We are interested in what benefits facemasks could offer as a non-pharmaceutical intervention, especially in the settings where high-technology interventions, such as contact tracing using mobile apps or rapid case detection via molecular tests, are not sustainable. Here, we report the results of two mathematical models and show that facemask use by the public could make a major contribution to reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our intention is to provide a simple modelling framework to examine the dynamics of COVID-19 epidemics when facemasks are worn by the public, with or without imposed ‘lock-down’ periods. Our results are illustrated for a number of plausible values for parameter ranges describing epidemiological processes and mechanistic properties of facemasks, in the absence of current measurements for these values. We show that, when facemasks are used by the public all the time (not just from when symptoms first appear), the effective reproduction number, Re, can be decreased below 1, leading to the mitigation of epidemic spread. Under certain conditions, when lock-down periods are implemented in combination with 100% facemask use, there is vastly less disease spread, secondary and tertiary waves are flattened and the epidemic is brought under control. The effect occurs even when it is assumed that facemasks are only 50% effective at capturing exhaled virus inoculum with an equal or lower efficiency on inhalation. Facemask use by the public has been suggested to be ineffective because wearers may touch their faces more often, thus increasing the probability of contracting COVID-19. For completeness, our models show that facemask adoption provides population-level benefits, even in circumstances where wearers are placed at increased risk. At the time of writing, facemask use by the public has not been recommended in many countries, but a recommendation for wearing face-coverings has just been announced for Scotland. Even if facemask use began after the start of the first lock-down period, our results show that benefits could still accrue by reducing the risk of the occurrence of further COVID-19 waves. We examine the effects of different rates of facemask adoption without lock-down periods and show that, even at lower levels of adoption, benefits accrue to the facemask wearers. These analyses may explain why some countries, where adoption of facemask use by the public is around 100%, have experienced significantly lower rates of COVID-19 spread and associated deaths. We conclude that facemask use by the public, when used in combination with physical distancing or periods of lock-down, may provide an acceptable way of managing the COVID-19 pandemic and re-opening economic activity. These results are relevant to the developed as well as the developing world, where large numbers of people are resource poor, but fabrication of home-made, effective facemasks is possible. A key message from our analyses to aid the widespread adoption of facemasks would be: ‘my mask protects you, your mask protects me’.

ObjectivesAs schools plan for re-opening, understanding the potential role children play in the coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the factors that drive severe illness in children is critical.Study design: Children ages 0-22 years with suspected severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection presenting to urgent care clinics or being hospitalized for confirmed/suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) were offered enrollment in the MGH Pediatric COVID-19 Biorepository. Enrolled children provided nasopharyngeal, oropharyngeal, and/or blood specimens. SARS-CoV-2 viral load, ACE2 RNA levels, and serology for SARS-CoV-2 were quantified.ResultsA total of 192 children (mean age 10.2 +/- 7 years) were enrolled. Forty-nine children (26%) were diagnosed with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection; an additional 18 children (9%) met criteria for MIS-C. Only 25 (51%) of children with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection presented with fever; symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection, if present, were non-specific. Nasopharyngeal viral load was highest in children in the first 2 days of symptoms, significantly higher than hospitalized adults with severe disease (P = .002). Age did not impact viral load, but younger children had lower ACE2 expression (P=0.004). IgM and IgG to the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein were increased in severe MIS-C (P<0.001), with dysregulated humoral responses observed.ConclusionThis study reveals that children may be a potential source of contagion in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in spite of milder disease or lack of symptoms, and immune dysregulation is implicated in severe post-infectious MIS-C.

“Plandemic: Indoctornation” is a 75-minute pseudo-documentary that spins an elaborate conspiracy theory about the spread of COVID-19. The video is a follow-up to a shorter version that went viral in May. It repeats several inaccurate and misleading claims about the coronavirus pandemic. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken steps to slow the spread of “Plandemic: Indoctornation.”

Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield on Friday forcefully advocated the reopening of U.S. schools, even as colleges and universities around the country have been forced to shut their doors prematurely ahead of the fall session, in order to contain a rise in COVID-19 infections.

Summer in the Northern Hemisphere is coming to an end, and if we're not super careful about reopening our schools and daycare centres, experts warn children could soon play a much bigger role in the pandemic.

Cheap and quick, they could move us toward normalcy before a vaccine is widely available

We want to thank Mr Griffith and his co-author for their professionalism in voicing their opinions, which, unfortunately, is becoming increasingly rare in the days of social media, an issue we will come back to at the end of this letter. Their professionalism should be congratulated and even celebrated.

Statistical power is a useful but often misunderstood concept. Briefly, it represents the probability of rejecting a null hypothesis under some assumed conditions of a prospective experiment (distribution of the study outcome, planned sample size, and prespecified significance level to be used in the analysis). Most generally, we compute statistical power while planning comparative-effectiveness trials to ensure that the study will be large enough to conclude that an effect is present, if a meaningful effect truly exists.

Background Many articles in the surgical literature were faulted for committing type 2 error, or concluding no difference when the study was “underpowered”. However, it is unknown if the current power standard of 0.8 is reasonable in surgical science. Methods PubMed was searched for abstracts published in Surgery, JAMA Surgery, and Annals of Surgery and from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2016, with Medical Subject Heading terms of randomized controlled trial (RCT) or observational study (OBS) and limited to humans were included ( n = 403). Articles were excluded if all reported findings were statistically significant ( n = 193), or if presented data were insufficient to calculate power ( n = 141). Results A total of 69 manuscripts (59 RCTs and 10 OBSs) were assessed. Overall, the median power was 0.16 (interquartile range [IQR] 0.08-0.32). The median power was 0.16 for RCTs (IQR 0.08-0.32) and 0.14 for OBSs (IQR 0.09-0.22). Only 4 studies (5.8%) reached or exceeded the current 0.8 standard. Two-thirds of our study sample had an a priori power calculation ( n = 41). Conclusions High-impact surgical science was routinely unable to reach the arbitrary power standard of 0.8. The academic surgical community should reconsider the power threshold as it applies to surgical investigations. We contend that the blueprint for the redesign should include benchmarking the power of articles on a gradient scale, instead of aiming for an unreasonable threshold.

Calls for social justice and police reform have gained momentum as unrest continues across the country in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Rayshard Brooks. These calls are intersecting with the coronavirus pandemic, which has highlighted long existing health and economic disparities between Black Americans and other groups. Even now, as COVID-19 cases crest more than 2 million in the country, we see disproportionate impacts on black communities, with the overall mortality rate for Black Americans from COVID-19 more than twice as high as those for Whites, Asian and Latino Americans. In this Facebook Live Q&A, David Harris, Managing Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, discussed the drivers of current unrest and issues of police injustice -- and steps to consider to create a more just society.

The Alan Turing Institute: Causal Inference, Causal decision making under uncertainty Peter Tennant - University Academic Fellow in Health Data Science - University of Leeds Virginia Aglietti - PhD Student - Warwick University Eleanor Murray - Assistant Professor of Epidemiology - Boston University Bringing the world’s most interesting research papers to life. Examining the wider implications, we feature top research published across domains and verticals with exciting interviews with the authors themselves, alongside a curated Q&A session. CogX is hosted by Charlie Muirhead Co-Founder and CEO, and Co-Founder Tabitha Goldstaub. Find out more at: https://cogx.co/ CogX is an award-winning Festival with its roots in artificial intelligence. The fourth edition, June 8th to 10th 2020, adds a Virtual first experience and Global Leadership Summit, and builds on the huge success of the 2019 event, which brought together over 20,000 visitors. 2020 saw over 30,000 participants including 600+ speakers across 18 topic stages and 100+ side events. Our theme this year, “How do we get the next 10 years right?” with aims to: Move the conversation forward with concrete actions Inspire current and future generations of leaders Help reframe the climate emergency as the biggest economic opportunity in the last 200 years Help increase understanding of the current Covid-19 pandemic and champion innovative solutions CogX – Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI & Breakthrough Technology

Just weeks after the genome sequence of the recently emerged coronavirus was published online, researchers reported the cryogenic electron microscopy structure of the spike protein the virus uses to gain entry to host cells in a 19 February Science paper (https://scim.ag/2WxQ8lY). The insights from their study are already helping to inform vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. On Friday, the coauthors of this study, Jason McLellan and Barney Graham, discussed via Facebook Live how they visualized the spike protein, as well as how their work to improve understanding of SARS-CoV2 viral structure will inform therapeutics against this virus going forward. Show less Show more

in a nutshell, we are asking students to be 1) conspicuously more organized and disciplined, and to take a lot more highly regulated actions, at least in relation to health and symptomatology, 2) be much more socially isolated than before given social distancing and group restrictions; 3) commit to serious communitarian behaviors and attitudes that would be needed in order to comply with many, many additional requests from campus, and 4) tolerate much more uncertainty than normal. 

In unprecedented times, uncertainty abounds. The onset of a global pandemic is no exception. The pandemic is changing the ways we work, socialize, learn, and prosper. To better understand the societal impacts and challenges shaped by COVID-19, we are partnering with the University of Illinois Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute for a new series: Ask the Experts: Understanding Contemporary Challenges in the Time of COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak is one of the most challenging experiences our society has faced. It is also very much a social and behavioral science issue. Until we have a vaccine or therapeutics that can treat the disease, our primary tools for mitigating the impact of COVID-19 are social and behavioral in nature. Social distancing, washing our hands, not touching our faces, confronting isolation, and coordinating with others, require changes in our behaviors and social conditions that will be transformative for our society and for each of us as individuals. The disease itself will affect some parts of society more than others. Even if we find a way to treat the disease it will most likely change the way we behave and the way we relate to one another for many years. Additionally, coping with the stress of the disease and the convulsion it will cause our society necessitates bringing to bear resources from social policy, and mental as well as physical health. As all of these issues are the purview of social and behavioral scientists, we are sharing information curated by the CSBS team on the social and behavioral issues raised by COVID-19. The goal of this page is to inform and provide resources for the CSBS community in Champaign-Urbana and beyond.

The darkly funny memoir of Sarah Ramey’s years-long battle with a mysterious illness that doctors thought was all in her head—but wasn’t. A revelation and an inspiration for millions of women whose legitimate health complaints are ignored.In her harrowing, defiant, and unforgettable memoir, Sarah Ramey recounts the decade-long saga of how a seemingly minor illness in her senior year of college turned into a prolonged and elusive condition that destroyed her health but that doctors couldn't diagnose or treat. Worse, as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological.     The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a memoir with a mission: to help the millions of (mostly) women who suffer from unnamed or misunderstood conditions--autoimmune illnesses, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, chronic pain, and many more. Ramey's pursuit of a diagnosis and cure for her own mysterious illness becomes a page-turning medical mystery that reveals a new understanding of today's chronic illnesses as ecological in nature, driven by modern changes to the basic foundations of health, from the quality of our sleep, diet, and social connections to the state of our microbiomes. Her book will open eyes, change lives, and, ultimately, change medicine.

In the bestselling tradition of Stuff Matters and The Disappearing Spoon a clever and engaging look at materials, the innovations they made possible, and how these technologies changed us. In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines eight inventions--clocks, steel rails, copper communication cables, photographic film, light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips--and reveals how they shaped the human experience. Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer. She describes, among other things, how our pursuit of precision in timepieces changed how we sleep; how the railroad helped commercialize Christmas; how the necessary brevity of the telegram influenced Hemingway's writing style; and how a young chemist exposed the use of Polaroid's cameras to create passbooks to track black citizens in apartheid South Africa. These fascinating and inspiring stories offer new perspectives on our relationships with technologies. Ramirez shows not only how materials were shaped by inventors but also how those materials shaped culture, chronicling each invention and its consequences--intended and unintended. Filling in the gaps left by other books about technology, Ramirez showcases little-known inventors--particularly people of color and women--who had a significant impact but whose accomplishments have been hidden by mythmaking, bias, and convention. Doing so, she shows us the power of telling inclusive stories about technology. She also shows that innovation is universal--whether it's splicing beats with two turntables and a microphone or splicing genes with two test tubes and CRISPR.

In the tradition of Susan Cain's Quiet and Scott Stossel's My Age of Anxiety, Atlantic staff writer Olga Khazan reclaims the concept of "weird" and turns it into a badge of honor rather than a slur, showing how being different -- culturally, socially, physically, or mentally -- can actually be a person's greatest strength.Most of us have at some point in our lives felt like an outsider, sometimes considering ourselves "too weird" to fit in. Growing up as a Russian immigrant in West Texas, Olga Khazan always felt there was something different about her. This feeling has permeated her life, and as she embarked on a science writing career, she realized there were psychological connections between this feeling of being an outsider and both her struggles and successes later in life. She decided to reach out to other people who were unique in their environments to see if they had experienced similar feelings of alienation, and if so, to learn how they overcame them. Weird is based on in-person interviews with many of these individuals, such as a woman who is professionally surrounded by men, a liberal in a conservative area, and a Muslim in a predominantly Christian town. In addition, it provides actionable insights based on interviews with dozens of experts and a review of hundreds of scientific studies.Weird explores why it is that we crave conformity, how that affects people who are different, and what they can do about it. First, the book dives into the history of social norms and why some people hew to them more strictly than others. Next, Khazan explores the causes behind-and the consequences of-social rejection. She then reveals the hidden upsides to being "weird," as well as the strategies that people who are different might use in order to achieve success in a society that values normalcy. Finally, the book follows the trajectories of unique individuals who either decided to be among others just like them; to stay weird; or to dwell somewhere in between.Combining Khazan's own story with those of others and with fascinating takeaways from cutting-edge psychology research, Weird reveals how successful individuals learned to embrace their weirdness, using it to their advantage.

Ask any expert in infectious diseases and they’ll tell you that when it comes to pandemics, it’s not a question of if we’ll have another one. It’s a question of when. Today’s episode investigates what the most likely killers might be, and whether we’re prepared or not.

New discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines — all in about 10 minutes, every weekday. It's science for everyone, using a lot of creativity and a little humor. Join host Maddie Sofia for science on a different wavelength.

It’s the best option in such extreme circumstances.

Widespread social-distancing measures have produced some jarring effects across land, air, and sea.

The state is about to find out how many people need to lose their lives to shore up the economy.

Four ways to help those around you be better informed about the pandemic

Missing documentation and obsolete environments force participants in the Ten Years Reproducibility Challenge to get creative.

Pseudoscience and government conspiracy theories swirl on social media, though most of them stay largely confined to niche communities. In the case of COVID-19, however, a combination of anger at what some see as overly restrictive government policies, conflicting information about treatments and disease spread, and anxiety about the future has many people searching for facts...and finding misinformation. This dynamic creates an opportunity for determined people and skilled marketers to fill the void - to create content and produce messages designed to be shared widely.

The world is in the middle of a global educational emergency. One billion children are out of school because of the Covid-19 crisis; of those, roughly 400 million have lost access to free school meals. Many young people are behind on learning and have lost the structure of a routine. For those living in abusive households, school was a safe space where they could access supportive adults. As countries learn to live with the reality of coronavirus, reopening schools is one of the largest challenges they face. Parents should be kept largely off-site, and teachers should be cautious around one another In the UK, the hardest part of this isn’t opening schools, but ensuring they stay open in the foreseeable future. As the experiences of Israel and several states in the US have shown, if cases jump quickly and community transmission is high, it becomes difficult to keep schools open. Continual outbreaks and cases of Covid-19 within schools can also dent the confidence of parents and teachers, and spur a move towards online learning: in the US, for example, only one in seven parents says their children are returning to school full-time.

The University reported a 31.3 percent positivity rate of COVID-19 tests last week — more than double the 13.6 percent positivity rate from the first week of class. 

Processing information about probabilities is an integral part of decision making under risk. Even when objective probabilities are explicitly provided, people tend to distort them, which is reflected by an inverted S‐shaped probability weighting function. Such distortions depend on different factors such as numeracy and affect. The present study contributes to the understanding of how people use probabilities in risky decision making by introducing the concept of consistency in probability processing―a measure of how coherent people are in using objective probabilities. We hypothesized that consistency would depend on factors similar to those that influence the shape of the probability weighting function. Moreover, we predicted that probability processing consistency would be related to better decision outcomes in an experimental betting task. In three experiments, participants were presented with the probability of a potential gain/loss and had to place a bet on a given chance to maximize their total earnings. We defined probability processing consistency as the variance of bets placed on the same probability value, with higher variance indicating lower consistency. We found that consistency in probability processing was lower in relatively affect‐rich conditions and greater for people with higher numeracy. Additionally, people who exhibited more consistent processing of probabilities gained higher earnings from the experimental task irrespective of whether their betting strategy was optimal and of their risk preference. Our findings imply that consistency in processing probabilities may be an important factor in understanding betting strategies and the quality of decisions.

In this chapter, we provide a necessarily brief and partial survey of recent work in the cognitive sciences directly on or closely related to the psychology of fake news, in particular fake news in the political domain. We focus on whether and why people believe fake news. While we argue that it is likely that a large proportion of people who purport to believe fake news really do, we provide evidence that this proportion might be significantly smaller than is usually thought (and smaller than is suggested by surveys). Assertion of belief is inflated, we suggest, by insincere report, whether to express support for one side of political debate or simply for fun. It is also inflated by the use of motivated inference of one sort or another, which lead respondents to report believing things about which they had no opinion prior to being probed. We then turn to rival accounts that aim to explain why people believe in fake news when they do. While partisan explanations, turning on motivated reasoning, are probably best known, we show they face serious challenges from accounts that explain belief by reference to analytic thinking.

We develop a theory to measure the variance and covariance of probability distributions defined on the nodes of a graph, which takes into account the distance between nodes. Our approach generalizes the usual (co)variance to the setting of weighted graphs and retains many of its intuitive and desired properties. Interestingly, we find that a number of famous concepts in graph theory and network science can be reinterpreted in this setting as variances and covariances of particular distributions: we show this correspondence for Kemeny's constant, the Kirchhoff index, network modularity and Markov stability. As a particular application, we define the maximum-variance problem on graphs with respect to the effective resistance distance, and characterize the solutions to this problem both numerically and theoretically. We show how the maximum-variance distribution can be interpreted as a core-periphery measure, illustrated by the fact that these distributions are supported on the leaf nodes of tree graphs, low-degree nodes in a configuration-like graph and boundary nodes in random geometric graphs. Our theoretical results are supported by a number of experiments on a network of mathematical concepts, where we use the variance and covariance as analytical tools to study the (co-)occurrence of concepts in scientific papers with respect to the (network) relations between these concepts.

Peer review is a cornerstone of modern scientific endeavor. However, there is growing consensus that several limitations of the current peer review system, from lack of incentives to reviewers to lack of transparency, risks to undermine its benefits. Here, we introduce the PRINCIPIA (http://www.principia.network/) framework for peer-review of scientific outputs (e.g., papers, grant proposals or patents). The framework allows key players of the scientific ecosystem -- including existing publishing groups -- to create and manage peer-reviewed journals, by building a free market for reviews and publications. PRINCIPIA's referees are transparently rewarded according to their efforts and the quality of their reviews. PRINCIPIA also naturally allows to recognize the prestige of users and journals, with an intrinsic reputation system that does not depend on third-parties. PRINCIPIA re-balances the power between researchers and publishers, stimulates valuable assessments from referees, favors a fair competition between journals, and reduces the costs to access research output and to publish.

Letting the rich pay for science that interests them is a bad idea—even if they aren’t convicted sex offenders

Is there a universal economic pathway individual cities recapitulate over and over? This evolutionary structure—if any—would inform a reference model for fairer assessment, better maintenance, and improved forecasting of urban development. Using employment data including more than 100 million U.S. workers in all industries between 1998 and 2013, we empirically show that individual cities indeed recapitulate a common pathway where a transition to innovative economies is observed at the population of 1.2 million. This critical population is analytically derived by expressing the urban industrial structure as a function of scaling relations such that cities are divided into two economic categories: small city economies with sublinear industries and large city economies with superlinear industries. Last, we define a recapitulation score as an agreement between the longitudinal and the cross-sectional scaling exponents and find that nontradeable industries tend to adhere to the universal pathway more than the tradeable.

Large-scale collaborative projects recently demonstrated that several key findings from the social-science literature could not be replicated successfully. Here, we assess the extent to which a finding’s replication success relates to its intuitive plausibility. Each of 27 high-profile social-science findings was evaluated by 233 people without a Ph.D. in psychology. Results showed that these laypeople predicted replication success with above-chance accuracy (i.e., 59%). In addition, when participants were informed about the strength of evidence from the original studies, this boosted their prediction performance to 67%. We discuss the prediction patterns and apply signal detection theory to disentangle detection ability from response bias. Our study suggests that laypeople’s predictions contain useful information for assessing the probability that a given finding will be replicated successfully.

Zwaan, Etz, Lucas, and Donnelan (2017) argue convincingly that replication needs to be more mainstream. Here, I suggest three practices for achieving that goal: Incremental Replications, which are replications built into each experiment in a series of experiments; Reciprocal Replications, which are reciprocal arrangements of co-replications across labs, and Didactic Replications, which are replications used for training.

Four times as many adolescents are physically abused compared with younger children in England, analysis of police-recorded offences shows, with incidents against 11- to 18-year-olds soaring during the coronavirus lockdown.The numbers and rates of recorded physical abuse offences against older children in England and Wales have increased since 2014-15, the NSPCC said in a report.

In this paper, we present an unsupervised graph-based approach for the detection of symptoms of COVID-19, the pathology of which seems to be evolving. More generally, the method can be applied to finding context-specific words and texts (e.g. symptom mentions) in large imbalanced corpora (e.g. all tweets mentioning #COVID-19). Given the novelty of COVID-19, we also test the proposed approach generalizes to the problem of detecting Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR). We find that the approach applied on Twitter data can detect symptom mentions much prior to their being reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Younger teenagers in the South West of England felt less anxious and more connected to school when they were away from it during the COVID-19 global pandemic public lockdown, a first-of-its-kind study has found.

Social gatherings provoke moral indignation—but bringing in law enforcement will promote injustice, not reduce infections.

The second wave of the coronavirus in Australia appears to be finally subsiding, but the country isn’t out of the woods yet.

Nowadays, one of the challenges we face when carrying out modeling of epidemic spreading is to develop methods to control disease transmission. In this article we study how the spreading of knowledge of a disease affects the propagation of that disease in a population of interacting individuals. For that, we analyze the interaction between two different processes on multiplex networks: the propagation of an epidemic using the susceptible-infected-susceptible dynamics and the dissemination of information about the disease—and its prevention methods—using the unaware-aware-unaware dynamics, so that informed individuals are less likely to be infected. Unlike previous related models where disease and information spread at the same time scale, we introduce here a parameter that controls the relative speed between the propagation of the two processes. We study the behavior of this model using a mean-field approach that gives results in good agreement with Monte Carlo simulations on homogeneous complex networks. We find that increasing the rate of information dissemination reduces the disease prevalence, as one may expect. However, increasing the speed of the information process as compared to that of the epidemic process has the counterintuitive effect of increasing the disease prevalence. This result opens an interesting discussion about the effects of information spreading on disease propagation.

Addressing issues with the reproducibility of results is critical for scientific progress, but conflicting ideas about the sources of and solutions to irreproducibility are a barrier to change. Prior work has attempted to address this problem by creating analytical definitions of reproducibility. We take a novel empirical, mixed methods approach to understanding variation in reproducibility conversations, which yields a map of the discursive dimensions of these conversations. This analysis demonstrates that concerns about the incentive structure of science, the transparency of methods and data, and the need to reform academic publishing form the core of reproducibility discussions. We also identify three clusters of discussion that are distinct from the main group: one focused on reagents, another on statistical methods, and a final cluster focused the heterogeneity of the natural world. Although there are discursive differences between scientific and popular articles, there are no strong differences in how scientists and journalists write about the reproducibility crisis. Our findings show that conversations about reproducibility have a clear underlying structure, despite the broad scope and scale of the crisis. Our map demonstrates the value of using qualitative methods to identify the bounds and features of reproducibility discourse, and identifies distinct vocabularies and constituencies that reformers should engage with to promote change.

In the early/mid 20th century, scientists and philosophers advocated for a scientific framework that valued objectivity and certainty. This framework was committed to the value-free ideal, which held that social, political, ethical, and personal values are irrelevant to the process of science. This value system was adopted, both in science and public education systems. Indeed, the value of objectivity is thought to be synonymous with sound scientific practice. However, the “replication crisis” showed objectivity and certainty are illusory, and a value-system that favors objectivity may actually incentivize researchers to hide their biases. Over the last few years, a new value system is emerging, one that embraces uncertainty, encourages openness and transparency, and recognizes bias inherent in the scientific enterprise. These values conflict with those of the previous system, which creates discord among the scientific community. In this paper, we trace the origins of the existing value system and delineate new values emerging in the post-replication-crisis scientific community. This new set of values, objectified by the open science movement, recognizes the scientific process as a social enterprise. Neither set of values is inherently better, but both are reactions to the social environment in which researchers participate. What is important, however, is to recognize the significance of personal values in scientific discovery and to open dialogue about how to leverage these values. We conclude with recommendations about how to overcome both discord and the current incentive structure to increase the validity and reputability of science.

We found that official information about COVID-19 exceeded the recommended reading level, exhibited complex syntax, and used technical terminology. The significant difference in use of difficult terms between the CDC and state resources may reflect the influence of federal oversight mandating government communication that is understandable to the public. Limitations included the focus on text, with no evaluation of multimedia communication, and lack of data about actual comprehension or relevant outcomes such as adherence to mitigation strategies. Nonadherence to readability standards may have a greater influence in communities with lower health literacy, potentially exacerbating the disparate effects of the pandemic. As such, efforts should focus on the urgent development of plain-language COVID-19 resources that conform to established guidelines for clear communication and are more accessible to all audiences.

Controlling the spread of COVID-19 - even after a licensed vaccine is available - requires the effective use of non-pharmaceutical interventions: physical distancing, limits on group sizes, mask wearing, etc. To date, such interventions have neither been uniformly nor systematically implemented in most countries. For example, even when under strict stay-at-home orders, numerous jurisdictions granted exceptions and/or were in close proximity to locations with entirely different regulations in place. Here, we investigate the impact of such geographic inconsistencies in epidemic control policies by coupling search and mobility data to a simple mathematical model of SARS-COV2 transmission. Our results show that while stay-at-home orders decrease contacts in most areas of the US, some specific activities and venues often see an increase in attendance. Indeed, over the month of March 2020, between 10 and 30% of churches in the US saw increases in attendance; even as the total number of visits to churches declined nationally. This heterogeneity, where certain venues see substantial increases in attendance while others close, suggests that closure can cause individuals to find an open venue, even if that requires longer-distance travel. And, indeed, the average distance travelled to churches in the US rose by 13% over the same period. Strikingly, our model reveals that across a broad range of model parameters, partial measures can often be worse than none at all where individuals not complying with policies by traveling to neighboring areas can create epidemics when the outbreak would otherwise have been controlled. Taken together, our data analysis and modelling results highlight the potential unintended consequences of inconsistent epidemic control policies and stress the importance of balancing the societal needs of a population with the risk of an outbreak growing into a large epidemic.

One of the hallmarks of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is that the disease disproportionately strikes people of color. But it doesn’t have to be that way, a new study suggests.Researchers analyzed more than 11,000 COVID-19 patients who were sick enough to seek treatment at a hospital and found that Black Americans in the study were no more likely to die of the disease than their white counterparts. Even when they zeroed in on the sickest patients — those who were admitted to an intensive care unit and who had to be put on ventilators — the results were the same.

a group of professors have built a preprint server for education research, with the hope of speeding up the pace of research and reaching communities of teachers and parents. The effort is called EdArXiv (pronounced “ed-archive”). The odd spelling follows the formula set by that pioneering physics preprint server, arXiv, and the new server uses the same underlying software. In disciplines where sharing papers on preprint website is routine—including physics, computer science and mathematics—papers that have early versions posted end up getting cited more widely once they hit official journals, says Amanda Montoya, assistant professor of psychology at UCLA, who is the vice chair of the EdArXiv steering committee.One win for education, she stresses, is that it is a field where a large number of people could benefit from freely accessible findings—teachers, parents and policymakers. “None of those people are people who have all the resources of a university library,” she says.

In recent years, social media has become a ubiquitous and integral part of social networking. One of the major attentions made by social researchers is the tendency of like-minded people to interact with one another in social groups, a concept which is known as Homophily. The study of homophily can provide eminent insights into the flow of information and behaviors within a society and this has been extremely useful in analyzing the formations of online communities. In this paper, we review and survey the effect of homophily in social networks and summarize the state of art methods that has been proposed in the past years to identify and measure the effect of homophily in multiple types of social networks and we conclude with a critical discussion of open challenges and directions for future research.

The public appetite for scientific evidence during the coronavirus pandemic has been voracious. But communicating it well is a fiendish challenge. How can governments give clear advice while also acknowledging uncertainty? How can scientists debate complex evidence while supporting strong interventions? And how can the media scrutinise public health measures without undermining them?

The retraction of a Trojan horse paper on the novel coronavirus has called into question the validity of another article in the same journal which found that hydroxychloroquine is effective against Covid-19. 

In this video I explain what flat earthers believe, why they believe it, and why I think scientists should take flat earthers more seriously.

Las Vegas casinos, open for months now, are a likely hotbed for the spread of COVID-19. For many reasons, contact tracing has proved next to impossible as tourists return to homes across the U.S.

Welcome to COVID-19 Living Evidence. This database is updated daily with published articles from Pubmed and EMBASE and with preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv. We only include research about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19

Is it safe to fly with the coronavirus still circulating? That depends partly on where you are. But while hard evidence is scarce, it appears the risk of being infected with the coronavirus during a flight is relatively low. “Overall, planes are probably safer than poorly ventilated pubs, where similar densities of people do not wear masks and talk a lot and loudly,” says Julian Tang at the University of Leicester in the UK.

Psychology researchers are rapidly adopting open science practices, yet clear guidelines on how to apply these practices to meta-analysis remain lacking. In this tutorial, we describe why open science is important in the context of meta-analysis in psychology, and suggest how to adopt the three main components of open science: preregistration, open materials, and open data. We first describe how to make the preregistration as thorough as possible—and how to handle deviations from the plan. We then focus on creating easy-to-read materials (e.g., search syntax, R scripts) to facilitate reproducibility and bolster the impact of a meta-analysis. Finally, we suggest how to organize data (e.g., literature search results, data extracted from studies) that are easy to share, interpret, and update as new studies emerge. For each step of the meta-analysis, we provide example templates, accompanied by brief video tutorials, and show how to integrate these practices into the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/q8stz/).

The frequent emergence of diseases with the potential to become threats at local and global scales, such as influenza A(H1N1), SARS, MERS, and recently COVID-19 disease, makes it crucial to keep designing models of disease propagation and strategies to prevent or mitigate their effects in populations. Since isolated systems are exceptionally rare to find in any context, especially in human contact networks, here we examine the susceptible-infected-recovered model of disease spreading in a multiplex network formed by two distinct networks or layers, interconnected through a fraction q<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mi>q</mi></math> of shared individuals (overlap). We model the interactions through weighted networks, because person-to-person interactions are diverse (or disordered); weights represent the contact times of the interactions. Using branching theory supported by simulations, we analyze a social distancing strategy that reduces the average contact time in both layers, where the intensity of the distancing is related to the topology of the layers. We find that the critical values of the distancing intensities, above which an epidemic can be prevented, increase with the overlap q<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mi>q</mi></math>. Also we study the effect of the social distancing on the mutual giant component of susceptible individuals, which is crucial to keep the functionality of the system. In addition, we find that for relatively small values of the overlap q<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mi>q</mi></math>, social distancing policies might not be needed at all to maintain the functionality of the system.

Openness in research can lead to greater reproducibility, an accelerated pace of discovery, and decreased redundancy of effort. In addition, open research ensures equitable access to knowledge and the ability for any community to assess, interrogate, and build upon prior work. It also requires open infrastructure and distributed access; but few institutions can provide all of these services alone. Providing a trustworthy network for perpetual availability of research data is critical to ensuring reproducibility, transparency, and ongoing inquiry. Increased attention on the importance of open research and data sharing has led to a proliferation of platforms to store data, materials, etc., with limited technical integration. This can hinder data sharing, but also complicate coordination with local library expertise and services, thus hampering curation and long-term stewardship. For example, the open source OSF enables researchers to directly create and manage research projects and integrates with other tools researchers use (Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, etc.), but lacks the ability to archive that material locally at a researcher’s institution. Long-term stewardship and preservation requires multiple copies of data archived in different locations, and creating archives seamlessly would be ideal. COS and IA are working together to address these preservation and stewardship challenges by providing open, cooperative infrastructure to ensure long-term access and connection to research data, and by supporting and promoting adoption of open science practices to enhance research reproducibility as well as data sharing and reuse. In this webinar, attendees will learn about both the technical and practical aspects of this collaborative project connecting the researcher tool OSF and the preservation system of Internet Archive. We demonstrate how researchers can improve the openness and reproducibility of their research through preregistration, and how those preregistrations are preserved with Internet Archive. We answer questions and explore use cases for how this powerful workflow can support library curation and stewardship of open research.

Does the digital economy need new regulation to improve citizens’ safety online? When does illegal become harmful? What oversight does regulation involve and what role should social media companies have? How can privacy enhancing technologies help with regards to online harms? Join leading researchers and industry advocates for a discussion on the outlook for online harms and how AI is countering disinformation.

David Spiegelhalter is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication in the University of Cambridge, which aims to improve the way that statistical evidence is used by health professionals, patients, lawyers, media and policy-makers. Apart from academic publications, he has written The Norm Chronicles (with Michael Blastland), Sex by Numbers, and the recently-published The Art of Statistics. He presented the BBC4 documentaries Tails you Win: the Science of Chance and the award-winning Climate Change by Numbers. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005, knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics, and was President of the Royal Statistical Society for 2017-2018. His greatest achievement came in 2011, when he was 7th in an episode of Winter Wipeout.

Since the start of the global pandemic and nationwide protests against racial injustices, there has been a flood of information online. As new information hits our newsfeeds daily, there’s still a lot of uncertainty around the virus and response to the protests. How does the unpredictable nature of the current situations make us susceptible to consuming and potentially sharing misinformation?

Getting children back into school is a “moral duty”, Boris Johnson has declared, despite the open question of how well prepared UK schools are to prevent the spread of Covid-19 – especially with the chief medical officer for England warning that “we have probably reached near the limit or the limits of what we can do in terms of opening up society”. Yet much less is being said about the return of university students to face-to-face teaching this autumn. Many of the 2.5 million students in higher education, most of them undergraduates, will shortly be flooding into towns and cities far from home, more than half a million of them for the first time. They will come into contact with untold millions of local residents, but most closely with nearly half a million university employees, especially those whose job it is to teach them.

Management strategies for control of vector-borne diseases, for example Zika or dengue, include using larvicide and/or adulticide, either through large-scale application by truck or plane or through door-to-door efforts that require obtaining permission to access private property and spray yards. The efficacy of the latter strategy is highly dependent on the compliance of local residents. Here we develop a model for vector-borne disease transmission between mosquitoes and humans in a neighborhood setting, considering a network of houses connected via nearest-neighbor mosquito movement. We incorporate large-scale application of adulticide via aerial spraying through a uniform increase in vector death rates in all sites, and door-to-door application of larval source reduction and adulticide through a decrease in vector emergence rates and an increase in vector death rates in compliant sites only, where control efficacies are directly connected to real-world experimentally measurable control parameters, application frequencies, and control costs. To develop mechanistic insight into the influence of vector motion and compliance clustering on disease controllability, we determine the the basic reproduction number R0 for the system, provide analytic results for the extreme cases of no mosquito movement, infinite hopping rates, and utilize degenerate perturbation theory for the case of slow but non-zero hopping rates. We then determine the application frequencies required for each strategy (alone and combined) in order to reduce R0 to unity, along with the associated costs. Cost-optimal strategies are found to depend strongly on mosquito hopping rates, levels of door-to-door compliance, and spatial clustering of compliant houses, and can include aerial spray alone, door-to-door treatment alone, or a combination of both. The optimization scheme developed here provides a flexible tool for disease management planners which translates modeling results into actionable control advice adaptable to system-specific details.

For knowledge to benefit research and society, it must be trustworthy. Trustworthy research is robust, rigorous, and transparent at all stages of design, execution, and reporting. Assessment of researchers still rarely includes considerations related to trustworthiness, rigor, and transparency. We have developed the Hong Kong Principles (HKPs) as part of the 6th World Conference on Research Integrity with a specific focus on the need to drive research improvement through ensuring that researchers are explicitly recognized and rewarded for behaviors that strengthen research integrity. We present five principles: responsible research practices; transparent reporting; open science (open research); valuing a diversity of types of research; and recognizing all contributions to research and scholarly activity. For each principle, we provide a rationale for its inclusion and provide examples where these principles are already being adopted.

Peer review is a cornerstone of modern scientific endeavor. However, there is grow-ing consensus that several limitations of the current peer review system, from lack ofincentives to reviewers to lack of transparency, risks to undermine its benefits. Here,we introduce the PRINCIPIAabframework for peer-review of scientific outputs (e.g.,papers, grant proposals or patents). The framework allows key players of the scientificecosystem – including existing publishing groups – to create and manage peer-reviewedjournals, by building a free market for reviews and publications. PRINCIPIA’s refereesare transparently rewarded according to their efforts and the quality of their reviews.PRINCIPIA also naturally allows to recognize the prestige of users and journals, withan intrinsic reputation system that does not depend on third-parties. PRINCIPIA re-balances the power between researchers and publishers, stimulates valuable assessmentsfrom referees, favors a fair competition between journals, and reduces the costs to accessresearch output and to publish

Survey respondents experience depression, anxiety and programme delays.

Beyond factors such as age and sex, underlying aspects of biology and society influence disease severity

However, with inadequate details on the trials and only superficial scrutiny by the public and scientific decision makers, the consequences have had disastrous effects on other clinical trial funding, permissions, recruitment, and interpretation.

A new saliva-based diagnostic does not require a “brain-tickling” swab, and it can be used with a range of chemical reagents

Clusters of infections traced to apartments and frat houses

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen health and medical research promoted as countries establish resilient health systems and rapidly responsive prevention, detection, and treatment methods. However, the pandemic will probably negatively affect the capacity and outcomes of the health and medical research sector itself.1

A crucial area in which information overload is experienced is news consumption. Ever increasing sources and formats are becoming available through a combination of traditional and new (digital) media, including social media. In such an information and media rich environment, understanding how people access and manage news during a global health epidemic like COVID-19 becomes even more important. The designation of the current situation as an infodemic has raised concerns about the quality, accuracy and impact of information. Instances of misinformation are commonplace due, in part, to the speed and pervasive nature of social media and messaging applications in particular. This paper reports on data collected using media diaries from 15 university students in the United Arab Emirates documenting their news consumption in April 2020. Faced with a potentially infinite amount of information and news, participants demonstrate how they are managing news overload (MNO) using a number of complementary strategies. Results show that while consumption patterns vary, all diaries indicate that users’ ability to navigate the news landscape in a way that fulfils their needs is influenced by news sources; platform reliability and verification; sharing activity; and engagement with news.

Honest disclosures of COVID-19 behaviors and symptoms is critical. A sample of adults on MTurk (N = 451, 20–82 years of age) were asked if they have concealed social distancing practices, COVID-19 symptoms, and quarantine instructions, as well as how they evaluated others’ COVID-19 concealment. Those who believed they had contracted COVID-19 engaged in greater rates of concealment and evaluated concealment more positively compared to those without the virus. As age and communal orientation increased, COVID-19 concealment behaviors decreased, and evaluations of this concealment were rated more negatively. Implications for public health initiatives and psychological theory on concealing health information is discussed.

Making work freely available online allows psychological scientists to get feedback on scholarly work in progress, speed dissemination of work, and ensure public access to completed work. Public access to research (Open Access) manifests core scientific values. Most scholars support Open Access, and most publishers in psychology allow it. Yet, most scholarship in psychology is not accessible to the public. This paper offers information and guidance to psychological scientists who want to self-archive their work. We first review terminology and provide a historical and legal overview of Open Access, and then give step by step guidance to psychological scientists who want to self-archive their work informed by legal, ethical, and logistical constraints.

Objective: We study employee perspectives on return to physical workspaces to ultimately inform employers’ and policy makers’ decision making around the return to work during COVID-19. Methods: We tested the three-component conceptual model using survey data collected in the United States in May 2020 from samples of energy workers (N = 333). Results: Females, non-Caucasians, and employees living in multi-generational households were less willing to return. Concerns about childcare were negatively related to willingness to return, whereas organizational strategies for mitigating COVID-19 transmission at work were positively related to willingness to return. COVID-19 infections in an employees’ network were also negatively related to employees’ willingness to return. Conclusions: Blanket policies may miss the nuanced needs of different employee groups. Employers and policy makers should adopt flexible approaches to ensure a return to workspaces that addresses employee concerns and needs.

Do we praise prosocial acts because they produce social benefits or because they entail a personal sacrifice? Six studies demonstrate that consumers primarily rely on personal cost rather than social benefit when evaluating prosocial actors. This occurs because sacrifice, but not benefit, is taken as a signal of moral character and an input to reputational judgments (Studies 1 and 2), reflecting a “character = sacrifice” heuristic predicted by costly signaling theory. The studies test four possible boundary conditions, finding that the effects are similar for actions that benefit one’s own country versus foreigners (Study 3), but differ for donations of time (Study 4), when information about personal sacrifice is unavailable (Study 5), and when high-cost but ineffective acts are pitted directly against low-cost but effective acts in joint evaluation (Study 6). These results help to account for the ineffectiveness of many charitable activities but also suggest directions for incentivizing effective charity.

Most countries in the world recommend or mandate face masks in public places during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, until very recently, no studies have examined the potentially adverse effect of face masks on face-touching. Here, we video observed face-touching behavior among members of the public in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, during the pandemic. Our confirmatory analysis shows that face masks are not associated with face-touching, defined as touches of the face or the mask. However, a subsequent exploratory analysis found suggestive evidence that face masks are specifically associated with direct face contact. Our results add to the growing body of evidence suggesting that face masks are either not associated or negatively associated with face-touching, and thus are unlikely to have any adverse self-touching effect, as this has been raised as a concern.

Decades of work has been dedicated to developing and testing models that characterize how people make inter-temporal choices. Although parameter estimates from these models are often interpreted as indices of latent components of the choice process, little work has been done to examine their reliability. This is problematic, because estimation error can bias conclusions that are drawn from these parameter estimates. We examine the reliability of inter-temporal choice model parameter estimates by conducting a parameter recovery analysis of 11 prominent models. We find that the reliability of parameter estimation varies considerably between models and the experimental designs upon which parameter estimates are based. We conclude that many parameter estimates reported in previous research are likely unreliable and provide recommendations on how to enhance reliability for those wishing to use inter-temporal choice models for measurement purposes.

Coalitions have a long history as part of the field of community psychology. While community psychologists often work with coalitions, these entities engage in a wide range of activities and structures that are not well defined within the field. In this paper, we explore the following questions: (1) What are the characteristics of coalitions that community psychologists study? (2) What are the themes in the way authors define coalitions in their work? To address these questions, we conducted a systematic review of articles about coalitions in journals serving community psychologists. Findings suggest coalitions can be characterized by a focus on local level community issues around health and wellness and include a diverse group of stakeholders. Coalitions are defined by a focus on three types of coordination: knowledge coordination, negotiated coordination, and action coordination. These types of coordination are used to address specific problems coalitions encounter and define the goals and techniques appropriate for resolving them.

Decades of research has pointed to emotion regulation (ER) as a critical ingredient for health, well-being, and social functioning. However, the vast majority of this research has examined emotion regulation in a social vacuum, despite the fact that in everyday life individuals frequently regulate their emotions with help from other people. The present collection of pre-registered studies examined whether social help increases the efficacy of reappraisal, a widely-studied ER strategy that involves changing how one thinks about emotional stimuli. In Study 1 (N = 40 friend pairs), we compared the efficacy of reinterpreting the content of negative stimuli alone (independent ER) to listening to a friend reinterpret the stimuli (social ER). We found that social ER was more effective than independent ER, and that the efficacy of these strategies was correlated within individuals. In Studies 2 and 3, we replicated effects from Study 1, and additionally tested alternate explanations for our findings. In Study 2 (N = 40 individuals), we ruled out the possibility that social ER was more effective than independent ER due to a difference in the quality of reinterpretations, and in Study 3 (N = 40 friend pairs), we found that social help did not attenuate negative affect in the absence of reappraisal. In sum, we found that social help selectively potentiates the efficacy of reappraisal, and that this effect was not merely the outcome of social buffering. Together, these results provide insight into how social relationships can directly lend a hand in implementing ER strategies.

Manipulation checks are thought to offer confidence in the validity of a causal explanation. As a general principle, it is worthwhile to have some degree of certainty that a manipulation or treatment caused variation in the independent variable of interest. However, this paper purports that manipulation checks do not pave the way towards inferential confidence. Specifically, this paper posits that a) manipulation checks do not improve our causal explanations, and b) that they are potential threats to internal validity. It is argued that rather than useful, manipulation checks are at best uninformative, but more likely compromise the interpretation of experimental results. As an alternative to manipulation checks, this paper proposes an approach to test a causal explanation which relies on falsification rather than confirmation. I conclude that rather than relying on manipulation checks as a ‘Band-Aid’ method to alleviate validity concerns, inferential rigor can be improved by attempting to cast doubt on the presumed explanation of the findings

Background: Critics of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) warn against overdiagnosis and overtreatment of millions of children. Objective: The goal of this article is to raise awareness to manipulations and "spins" that might occur in attention disorders research. Method: An in-depth inspection was conducted on a high-profile study that suggested that ADHD increases the risk for infection with COVID-19 and that stimulants reduce that risk1. Two additional studies by the same first author were inspected as well – one that was published in the same journal and one that relied on the same dataset. Results: Seven manipulations and spins were identified, including inappropriate operational definitions, misrepresentations, and omissions that produced bogus results and might have concealed potential adverse effects of medications on COVID-19 outcomes. Without correcting for these distortions, it is therefore not possible to determine that ADHD increases the risk of COVID-19 and that stimulant medications reduce this risk. Conclusions: The manipulations and spins identified in this article may raise awareness to poor methodologies and biases that occur in the field of attention disorders, mainly due to the contaminating influences of the pharmaceutical industry. In turn, these biases may contribute to the ethically problematic phenomena of overdiagnosis and overmedication. Altogether, this article may encourage physicians to apply healthy scientific skepticism and serve scientists who wish to conduct reliable and transparent research on ADHD and its related medications.

Affective polarization is a defining feature of 21st century American politics—partisans harbor considerable dislike and distrust of those from the other party. Does this animus have consequences for citizens’ opinions? Such effects would highlight not only the consequences of polarization, but also shed new light onto how citizens form preferences more generally. Normally, this question is intractable, but the outbreak of the novel coronavirus allows us to answer it. We find that affective polarization powerfully shapes citizens’ attitudes about the pandemic, as well as the actions they have taken in response to it. However, these effects are conditional on the local severity of the outbreak, as the effects decline in areas with high caseloads—threat vitiates partisan reasoning. Our results clarify that closing the divide on important issues requires not just policy discourse but also attempts to reduce inter-partisan hostility.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has unprecedented consequences on population health, with governments worldwide issuing public health directives which have major impacts on normal living. In the absence of a vaccine, a key way to control the pandemic is through behavioural change: people adhering to transmission-reducing behaviours (TRBs), such as physical distancing, regular hand washing, and wearing face covering, especially when physical distancing is difficult. The application of behavioural science is central to understanding factors that influence adherence to TRBs. Non-adherence may be explained by theories of how people think about the illness (the common-sense model of self-regulation) and/or how they think about the TRBs (social cognition theory and protection motivation theory). In addition, outbreaks of infectious diseases and the measures employed to curb them are likely to have detrimental effects on people’s mental and general health. Therefore, in representative repeated surveys we will apply behavioural theories to model adherence to TRBs, explain variations in adherence, and the effects on mental and general health in the Scottish population from June to November 2020, following the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Repeated 20-minute structured telephone surveys will be conducted with nationally representative random samples of 500 adults from throughout Scotland. The first 6 weeks the survey will be conducted weekly, thereafter fortnightly, for a total of 14 waves (total n=7000). Ipsos MORI will recruit participants through random digit dialling. The core survey will measure adherence to TRBs, mental and general health, and explanatory variables from the theories. Further questions will be added, enabling more detailed measurement of constructs in the core survey, additional themes, and questions that align with the evolving pandemic. Discussion This study will provide insights into the link between (changes in) adherence to TRBs and explanatory factors, and their effects on mental and general health, including event-related changes (e.g., when government directives change). Governments and other decision-makers may use these findings to tailor public health promotion, target specific population groups, and develop behaviourally informed interventions over the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic (along with any subsequent equivalent events) to protect health and limit the spread of COVID-19.

Misinformation often has a continuing effect on people’s reasoning despite clear correction. One factor assumed to affect post-correction reliance on misinformation is worldview-driven motivated reasoning. For example, a recent study with an Australian undergraduate sample found that when politically-situated misinformation was retracted, political partisanship influenced the effectiveness of the retraction. This worldview effect was asymmetrical, that is, particularly pronounced in politically-conservative participants. However, the evidence regarding such worldview effects (and their symmetry) has been inconsistent. Thus, the present study aimed to extend previous findings by examining a sample of 429 pre-screened U.S. participants supporting either the Democratic or Republican Party. Participants received misinformation suggesting that politicians of either party were more likely to commit embezzlement; this was or was not subsequently retracted, and participants’ inferential reasoning was measured. While political worldview (i.e., partisanship) influenced the extent to which participants relied on the misinformation overall, retractions were equally effective across all conditions. There was no impact of political worldview on retraction effectiveness, let alone evidence of a backfire effect, and thus we did not replicate the asymmetry observed in the Australian-based study. This pattern emerged despite some evidence that Republicans showed a stronger emotional response than Democrats to worldview-incongruent misinformation.

COVID-19 has plagued the globe since January 2020, infecting millions and claiming the lives of several hundreds of thousands (at the time of writing). Despite this, many individuals have ignored public health guidance and continued to socialize in groups. Emergent work has highlighted the potential role that ideology plays in such behavior, and judgements of it. In response to this contemporary cultural phenomenon, we tested whether judgements of those allegedly flouting the guidance on social distancing were influenced by an interaction between the ideologies of those providing judgements, and those allegedly breaking the rules. Our data suggest that judgements of those flouting social distancing guidance are influenced by ideology in a symmetrical way. That is, both liberals and conservatives condemn outgroup flouting more than ingroup flouting. We discuss this finding in the context of theoretical work into ideological symmetries, and the implications of growing ideological polarization in contemporary Western democracies.