The COVID-19 pandemic has propelled the research and higher education sectors to the forefront of public attention. Laboratory capacity has been crucial for diagnostic testing; experts in infectious diseases, epidemiology, public health, mathematical modelling, and economics are central to national policy making and media coverage; clinical research has been vital to improving COVID-19 management; and our collective global future relies heavily on the development of an effective vaccine against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Meanwhile, the pandemic is undermining the ability of researchers to do their jobs and of universities to provide a high-quality and safe educational experience for students. As the northern hemisphere looks forward to the beginning of a new academic year, the troubling effects of the pandemic on research and higher education are coming into sharp focus. Immediate challenges such as campus safety, university admissions processes, and online learning arrangements are dominating the discussion. But the pandemic will have complex, unexpected, and long-term implications for research that must be anticipated now.

10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31818-3

Research and higher education in the time of COVID-19

Schools should be the last places to shut in future lockdowns, after non-essential shops, pubs and restaurants, England's children's commissioner says.

Schools 'must come before pubs and restaurants in future'

Stanford postdoc Ashley Styczynski and collaborators build a website devoted to protecting health-care workers in under-resourced countries, using infographics and videos to show them how to create, wear and preserve personal protective equipment.

Rosenkranz Prize Winner Leads Effort to Protect Health-Care Workers from COVID-19 in Under-Resourced Countries

here's the quote from the piece itself: [An example of confirmation bias is...] "...our propensity to interpret declining infection rates as a confirmation that the lockdowns “worked”, when in fact this is a textbook example of the post hoc fallacy.".

why? because it pretends that the temporal cue (falling numbers after lockdown) literally is *the only* evidence being used. Whereas, in actuality, a huge body of evidence *predicts* that lockdowns will bring down numbers and explains *why*

The pervasive influence of authority bias throughout the pandemic has been particularly troubling.

The Cognitive Biases Behind Society's Response to COVID-19

10.31234/osf.io/xwhpm

The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatic shifts in the teaching and learning of psychology. The purpose of this study was to document the impact of those shifts on undergraduate psychology students’ motivation and self-regulation of learning during the initial shift to remote instruction. Psychology majors (N = 358) attending a public land-grant university in the southeastern U.S. voluntarily completed a survey at the end of the Spring 2020 semester. Closed- and open-ended items assessed students’ self-reported behavioral and psychological wellness, motivation, and learning experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak. A convergent mixed methods analysis was used in which open-ended questions provided context and experiential nuance to quantitative findings. Students reported increases in sleep, social media use, gaming, and procrastination, but decreases in academic motivation and self-regulation (e.g., focusing, juggling responsibilities). Over 75% reported increases in stress, which they attributed most frequently to motivational and academic challenges. Students reported learning less in most of their classes following the shift. They attributed this to numerous internal (e.g., self-regulatory/motivational difficulties) and external (e.g., online delivery modality, changes to workload, poor communication, insufficient instructional accommodations) factors. Although most perceived their instructors as understanding, nearly half reported a decline in instructional quality and communication after the shift to remote instruction. Over one third of students reported feeling less certain about their future educational plans. Implications for the provision of institutional and instructional supports for college students during and beyond the pandemic are provided.

Psychology Students’ Motivation and Learning in Response to the Shift to Remote Instruction During COVID-19

10.31234/osf.io/h5cxp

The fight against misinformation on social media and the internet in general has gained tremendous attention in the recent years. One way of combatting this has been to attach warnings tags about verified content. In this paper, we report two studies that examine the potential effects of a single warning tag in a context where the gist of a False claim is often repeated without the tag, which, given the reality of the way that information is transmitted, can be said to be an ecologically realistic model. Study 1 showed that the placement of the tag makes no difference, while a simple tag produces higher levels of belief than a tag with explanatory details. Remarkably, the simple tag produces a large increase in belief in the False claim. Study 2 showed that enhancing the distinctive character of a tag by adding irrelevant information to it produces a relative increase in believability equivalent to that obtained by making the claim graphically more distinctive. However, repeating a simple tag more often reduces this effect. These results indicate that the effects of warning tags are a combination of adding to the distinctiveness of the memory trace of the False claim (which makes this more believable by increasing fluency) and the semantic content of the tag (which reduces belief).

When forewarned is not forearmed: The paradoxical effect of single warnings attached to repeated fake news

university_covid_dashboards

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has driven demand for forecasts to guide policy and planning. Previous research has suggested that combining forecasts from multiple models into a single "ensemble" forecast can increase the robustness of forecasts. Here we evaluate the real-time application of an open, collaborative ensemble to forecast deaths attributable to COVID-19 in the U.S. Methods Beginning on April 13, 2020, we collected and combined one- to four-week ahead forecasts of cumulative deaths for U.S. jurisdictions in standardized, probabilistic formats to generate real-time, publicly available ensemble forecasts. We evaluated the point prediction accuracy and calibration of these forecasts compared to reported deaths. Results Analysis of 2,512 ensemble forecasts made April 27 to July 20 with outcomes observed in the weeks ending May 23 through July 25, 2020 revealed precise short-term forecasts, with accuracy deteriorating at longer prediction horizons of up to four weeks. At all prediction horizons, the prediction intervals were well calibrated with 92-96% of observations falling within the rounded 95% prediction intervals. Conclusions This analysis demonstrates that real-time, publicly available ensemble forecasts issued in April-July 2020 provided robust short-term predictions of reported COVID-19 deaths in the United States. With the ongoing need for forecasts of impacts and resource needs for the COVID-19 response, the results underscore the importance of combining multiple probabilistic models and assessing forecast skill at different prediction horizons. Careful development, assessment, and communication of ensemble forecasts can provide reliable insight to public health decision makers.

10.1101/2020.08.19.20177493

Ensemble Forecasts of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the U.S.

This site maintains the authoritative, up-to-date record for forecasts of COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the US, created by dozens of leading infectious disease modeling teams from around the globe, in coordination with CDC.

The COVID-19 Forecast Hub

Background Growing evidence for the role of GPs’ gut feelings in cancer diagnosis raises questions about their origin and role in clinical practice.Aim To explore the origins of GPs’ gut feelings for cancer, their use, and their diagnostic utility.Design and setting Systematic review and meta-analysis of international research on GPs’ gut feelings in primary care.Method Six databases were searched from inception to July 2019, and internet searches were conducted. A segregated method was used to analyse, then combine, quantitative and qualitative findings.Results Twelve articles and four online resources were included that described varied conceptualisations of gut feelings. Gut feelings were often initially associated with patients being unwell, rather than with a suspicion of cancer, and were commonly experienced in response to symptoms and non-verbal cues. The pooled odds of a cancer diagnosis were four times higher when gut feelings were recorded (OR 4.24, 95% confidence interval = 2.26 to 7.94); they became more predictive of cancer as clinical experience and familiarity with the patient increased. Despite being included in some clinical guidelines, GPs had varying experiences of acting on gut feelings as some specialists questioned their diagnostic value. Consequently, some GPs ignored or omitted gut feelings from referral letters, or chose investigations that did not require specialist approval.Conclusion GPs’ gut feelings for cancer were conceptualised as a rapid summing up of multiple verbal and non-verbal patient cues in the context of the GPs’ clinical knowledge and experience. Triggers of gut feelings not included in referral guidance deserve further investigation as predictors of cancer. Non-verbal cues that trigger gut feelings appear to be reliant on continuity of care and clinical experience; they tend to remain poorly recorded and are, therefore, inaccessible to researchers.

10.3399/bjgp20X712301

Understanding the role of GPs’ gut feelings in diagnosing cancer in primary care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing evidence

#Coronavirus tracking from @UNC shows 31% of #SARSCoV2 tests run this week were positive, a dramatic increase from previous wks. Is anyone in #publichealth surprised by these outbreaks? I don't think so. This higher ed experiment is a bad idea in states w/ uncontrolled #COVID19.

Scientific analysis suggests coronavirus was spreading in UK weeks earlier than thought

Nottinghamshire woman, 75, may be first known UK Covid victim

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

We mustn't understate the importance of anyone's life when it comes to Covid deaths

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

Scrap fines for school non-attendance in England, say psychiatrists

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.

Day Care, Grandparent, Pod Or Nanny? How To Manage The Risks Of Pandemic Child Care

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.”

10.1136/bmj.m3271

Covid-19: Care homes in Belgium and Spain had “alarming living conditions,” says MSF report

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

Welcome to a new ERA of reproducible publishing

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

6 feet may not always be enough distance to protect from COVID-19, new report suggests