The future trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic hinges on the dynamics of adaptive immunity against SARS-CoV2; however, salient features of the immune response elicited by natural infection or vaccination are still uncertain. We use simple epidemiological models to explore estimates for the magnitude and timing of future Covid-19 cases given different protective efficacy and duration of the adaptive immune response to SARS-CoV-2, as well as its interaction with vaccines and nonpharmaceutical interventions. We find that variations in the immune response to primary SARS-CoV-2 infections and a potential vaccine can lead to dramatically different immune landscapes and burdens of critically severe cases, ranging from sustained epidemics to near elimination. Our findings illustrate likely complexities in future Covid-19 dynamics, and highlight the importance of immunological characterization beyond the measurement of active infections for adequately projecting the immune landscape generated by SARS-CoV-2 infections.

10.1126/science.abd7343

Immune life history, vaccination, and the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 over the next 5 years

For many U.S. colleges and universities that opted for in-person instruction this fall, the return to campus during the COVID-19 pandemic has proven disastrous, and prompted the question: who’s to blame for these new outbreaks? Although administrators are quick to blame student behavior, in this post, I will argue that the administrations are ultimately at fault – their negligence has put students’ health at risk and exacerbated the public health catastrophe.

Who’s to Blame for COVID-19 Outbreaks at Colleges and Universities?

10.1073/pnas.2001682117

The foundation of the scientific method rests on access to data, and yet such access is often restricted or costly. We investigate how improved data access shifts the quantity, quality, and diversity of scientific research. We examine the impact of reductions in cost and sharing restrictions for satellite imagery data from NASA’s Landsat program (the longest record of remote-sensing observations of the Earth) on academic science using a sample of about 24,000 Landsat publications by over 34,000 authors matched to almost 3,000 unique study locations. Analyses show that improved access had a substantial and positive effect on the quantity and quality of Landsat-enabled science. Improved data access also democratizes science by disproportionately helping scientists from the developing world and lower-ranked institutions to publish using Landsat data. This democratization in turn increases the geographic and topical diversity of Landsat-enabled research. Scientists who start using Landsat data after access is improved tend to focus on previously understudied regions close to their home location and introduce novel research topics. These findings suggest that policies that improve access to valuable scientific data may promote scientific progress, reduce inequality among scientists, and increase the diversity of scientific research.

Improving data access democratizes and diversifies science

10.31222/osf.io/ptg9j

Synthesis of evidence from the totality of relevant research is essential to inform and improve prevention efforts and policy. Given the large and usually heterogeneous evidence available, reaching a thorough understanding of what works, for whom, and in what contexts, can only be achieved through a systematic and comprehensive synthesis of evidence. Many barriers impede comprehensive evidence synthesis, which leads to uncertainty about the generalizability of intervention effectiveness, including: inaccurate terminology titles/abstracts/keywords (hampering literature search efforts); ambiguous reporting of study methods (resulting in inaccurate assessments of study rigor); and poorly reported participant characteristics, outcomes, and key variables (obstructing the calculation of an overall effect or the examination of effect modifiers). To address these issues and improve the reach of primary studies through their inclusion in evidence syntheses, we provide a set of practical guidelines to help prevention scientists prepare synthesis-ready research. We use a recent mindfulness trial as an empirical example to ground the discussion and demonstrate ways to ensure: (1) primary studies are discoverable; (2) the types of data needed for synthesis are present; and (3) these data are readily synthesizable. We highlight several tools and practices that can aid authors in these efforts, such as creating a repository for each project to host all study-related data files. We also provide step-by-step guidance and software suggestions for standardizing data design and public archiving to facilitate synthesis-ready research.

Ensuring Prevention Science Research is Synthesis-Ready for Immediate and Lasting Scientific Impact

10.31234/osf.io/dbg62

The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a global threat that has negative impacts on individuals’ physical and mental health. Here, we explore if disordered social media use promotes fear of COVID-19, which in turn increases stress and depression in users. The study also explores several risk and protective factors that may affect the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and stress and depression. There were 174 participants that completed an online survey that measured disordered social media use, fear of COVID-19, perceived stress, and depression symptomatology. We found that disordered social media use predicts perceived stress indirectly through fear of COVID-19. Disordered social media use had a direct relationship with depression scores and this relationship is mediated by fear of COVID-19. We also found that the positive relationship between fear of COVID-19 and perceived stress is stronger for older people than younger people. The psychological impact of COVID-19 may be exacerbated by content promoting the fear of COVID-19 that users will be exposed to on social media.

Disordered Social Media Use and Fear of COVID-19 and the Association with Stress and Depression.

Released in September 2020, the website aims to provide:   entry-level information for those interested in prognosis research methods and good practice ​​ links to frameworks and resources to help you plan, carry out and evaluate prognosis research in healthcare ​ updates on emerging topics, methods and findings in prognosis research ​ links to training courses, summer schools and conferences in prognosis and prediction research  ​ publications, presentations and videos that disseminate prognosis research methods

Welcome to prognosisresearch.com

some of them are just kids being kids, making stuff up and playing into taboos. but unfortunately deep state conspiracy theories have become so centralized and weaponized, that intentions don’t matter, the content is all one big soup of viral misinformation

Even where the stuff they are sharing is found somewhere else, they jump on it fast. I think I first saw the topographical map sea floor Epstein tunnels conspiracy on it, b/c some young conspiracy entrepreneur was just on top of that.

One thing to put things in perspective on this -- I dig through a lot of conspiracy professionally. It's hard to introduce me to new ones. But I flipped through tiktok for an hour (w/ a little bit of algo training via bookmarking) and was finding stuff I'd never seen.

Amidst many college outbreaks are a slew of very successful schools. My employer, @Yale, is among them: I hope they stay that way. Congrats to the students, faculty, staff, & our community for working together to achieve ZERO positive results in last 7 days. (9,425 tests).

Diagnosis of COVID at admission is made by clinicians, now experienced in what the disease looks like. PCR tests are used to support (or otherwise) their clinical diagnosis. The rise is new cases coming into hospital is very real and being seen across the country.

This needs to be accounted for in some reporting figures, particularly when patients are readmitted to hospital (see , for example, our piece on this from June http://bit.ly/3hSmlvc). But, this is NOT the reason for increasing cases or admissions. 2/3

There's a fair bit of misinformation doing the rounds today. One relates to a clear misunderstanding of PCR testing and false positives. It is true that some of those with COIVD can have positive PCR tests for weeks, sometimes at low levels, long after they're better. 1/3

older generations spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation on facebook has been reported for years. what people don’t realize is the same issues persist with kids today on tiktok, despite the widespread narrative that they’re immune to fake news from growing up online

i wrote a longform article about how conspiracy culture became so viral today. no demographic is immune. we all have a little conspiratorial thinking in us—that’s what makes ideological cults about the “deep state” so appealing and terrifying

gen z will make a conspiracy theory out of ANYTHING

the state of conspiracy theories on tiktok cannot be understated. these kids believe ANYTHING and spread misinformation like wildfire

A comprehensive mapping of paranoia, propaganda, moral panics, misinformation, and extremism

How America Became The Land Of Conspiracy Theories

Without a deeper understanding of the connection between contradiction and truth, and some basic appreciation of reasonable discourse rules, we cannot possibly have meaningful critical exchange between scientists and general public. and that won't happen over night... 3/3

and, in fact, seem often to view the fact that an exchange about their views has backed them into a contradiction as indication that one is just "interested in winning the argument" as opposed to getting at truth. 2/3

having spent a few days looking at 'debate' about COVID policy on lay twitter (not the conspiracy stuff, just the "we should all be Sweden" discussions), the single most jarring (and worrying) thing I noticed is that posters seem completely undeterred by self contradiction 1/3

Because Science is a horrible journal that doesn't even let you read the abstract, here it is.

10.31235/osf.io/qkf42

Culture has played a pivotal role in human evolution. Yet, the ability of social scientists to study culture is limited by currently available measurement instruments. Scholars of culture must regularly choose between scalable but sparse survey-based methods or restricted but rich ethnographic methods. Here, we demonstrate that massive online social networks can advance the study of human culture by providing quantitative, scalable, and high-resolution measurement of behaviorally revealed cultural values and preferences. We employ publicly available data across nearly 60,000 topic dimensions drawn from two billion Facebook users across 225 countries and territories. The data capture preferences inferred by Facebook from online behaviours on the platform, behaviors on external websites and apps, and offline behaviours captured by smartphones and other devices. We first validate that cultural distances calculated from this measurement instrument correspond to survey-based and objective measures of cultural differences. We then demonstrate that this measure enables insight into the cultural landscape globally at previously impossible resolution. We analyze the importance of national borders in shaping culture and explore unique cultural markers that identify subnational population groups. The global collection of massive data on human behavior provides a high-dimensional complement to traditional cultural metrics, potentially enabling novel insight into fundamental questions in the social sciences. The measure enables detailed investigation into the countries’ geopolitical stability, social cleavages within both small and large-scale human groups, the integration of migrant populations, and the disaffection of certain population groups from the political process, among myriad other potential future applications.

Expanding the measurement of culture with a sample of two billion humans

No Imperial model points to 85,000 deaths in Sweden. This cites work by other researchers. Imperial had no role in developing this model, its assumptions or its parameters.

Imperial’s COVID-19 Response Team reports and tools, including models, can be accessed on our website

We’ve dealt with similar misleading claims before

Neil Ferguson and Imperial did not produce a model for Sweden pointing to 85,000 deaths

intuitive EPIDEMIOLOGY: with the goal of developing your intuitions ('gut feelings'), this channel discusses epidemiology and related content (e.g., scientific papers and media articles) in a non-technical and accessible manner.

intuitive EPI - Channel introduction

Additional note on French data. The challenge (and one that's always an issue in real time) is that the lags resulting in updates to earlier data also mean that recent numbers may be revised upwards in future.

Quick clarification (thanks for flagging @marbin2050): the report of 239 deaths in Spain was from a day earlier (https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-09-17/spain-reports-239-new-coronavirus-deaths-the-highest-figure-so-far-during-the-second-wave-of-the-epidemic.html…) – 162 were reported yesterday (https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-09-18/spain-reports-11291-new-coronavirus-cases-and-162-deaths.html…)

I presume model is based on this recent paper, which predicted a second peak at ~30 deaths per day (https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.01.20185876v1…). For context, there were 27 COVID deaths reported in UK yesterday: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths

Spain reported 239 COVID deaths yesterday & France 154. So seems odd for this model to predict that if UK continues on same trajectory, then adds some not-particularly-good TTI in 8 weeks, deaths will peak at ~50 per day (unless I've misunderstood plot...)

Background Recent reports based on conventional SEIR models suggest that the next wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK could overwhelm health services, with fatalities that far exceed the first wave. These models suggest non-pharmaceutical interventions would have limited impact without intermittent national lockdowns and consequent economic and health impacts. We used Bayesian model comparison to revisit these conclusions, when allowing for heterogeneity of exposure, susceptibility, and viral transmission. Methods We used dynamic causal modelling to estimate the parameters of epidemiological models and, crucially, the evidence for alternative models of the same data. We compared SEIR models of immune status that were equipped with latent factors generating data; namely, location, symptom, and testing status. We analysed daily cases and deaths from the US, UK, Brazil, Italy, France, Spain, Mexico, Belgium, Germany, and Canada over the period 25-Jan-20 to 15-Jun-20. These data were used to estimate the composition of each country's population in terms of the proportions of people (i) not exposed to the virus, (ii) not susceptible to infection when exposed, and (iii) not infectious when susceptible to infection. Findings Bayesian model comparison found overwhelming evidence for heterogeneity of exposure, susceptibility, and transmission. Furthermore, both lockdown and the build-up of population immunity contributed to viral transmission in all but one country. Small variations in heterogeneity were sufficient to explain the large differences in mortality rates across countries. The best model of UK data predicts a second surge of fatalities will be much less than the first peak (31 vs. 998 deaths per day. 95% CI: 24-37)--substantially less than conventional model predictions. The size of the second wave depends sensitively upon the loss of immunity and the efficacy of find-test-trace-isolate-support (FTTIS) programmes. Interpretation A dynamic causal model that incorporates heterogeneity of exposure, susceptibility and transmission suggests that the next wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic will be much smaller than conventional models predict, with less economic and health disruption. This heterogeneity means that seroprevalence underestimates effective herd immunity and, crucially, the potential of public health programmes.

10.1101/2020.09.01.20185876

Dark matter, second waves and epidemiological modelling

As students start a term like no other, higher education is being reinvented for the post-pandemic world

The future of the university in the age of Covid

It has become increasingly clear that COVID-19 is transmitted between individuals. It stands to reason that the spread of the virus depends on sociocultural ecologies that facilitate or inhibit social contact. In particular, the community-level tendency to engage with strangers and freely choose friends, called relational mobility, creates increased opportunities to interact with a larger and more variable range of other people. It may therefore be associated with a faster spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. Here, we tested this possibility by analyzing growth curves of confirmed cases of and deaths due to COVID-19 in the first 30 days of the outbreaks in 39 countries. We found that growth was significantly accelerated as a function of a country-wise measure of relational mobility. This relationship was robust either with or without a set of control variables, including demographic variables, reporting bias, testing availability, and cultural dimensions of individualism, tightness, and government efficiency. Policy implications are also discussed.

10.1177/0956797620958118

Relational Mobility Predicts Faster Spread of COVID-19: A 39-Country Study

I tracked down the original source of the graph: https://mdedge.com/pediatrics/article/228682/coronavirus-updates/children-and-covid-19-new-cases-may-be-leveling… Coupled with the headline, this is atrocious data presentation from @AmerAcadPeds / @AAPNews. (Cases may be indeed leveling off somewhat, but this graph sure doesn't let you make that assessment.)

To illustrate what is wrong with the original, @JasonSalemi overlays percentage change in cumulative plot with the cumulative plot itself, for Florida data on pediatric cases. The red line falls away precipitously even during the duration of peak growth in cumulative cases.

Plotting the percentage increase in the cumulative total: for all but a few very specialized applications, this is a remarkably misleading form of data visualization because the ever-increasing denominator masks changes in the numerator.

Not so much. Here's a regular cumulative plot of my time spent on zoom.

Maybe it's coincidence, but it looks a lot the way that I've been able to bring my time spent on zoom calls under control over the course of the pandemic. Pretty impressive!

Here's a remarkably misleading #dataviz via @BethPathak. Sure looks like the pediatric COVID situation is getting better, right?

The coming months of the pandemic could be catastrophic. The U.S. still has ways to prepare.

How We Survive the Winter

NHS hospitals have been banned from launching their own coronavirus testing for staff and patients who have symptoms – despite a nationwide shortage in tests.

Coronavirus: Hospitals told not to test staff or patients for Covid-19

It seemed a truth universally acknowledged that the human population had no pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2, but is that actually the case? Peter Doshi explores the emerging research on immunological responses

10.1136/bmj.m3563

Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity?

Social bubbles in a pandemic: perception vs. reality

Guardian learns ‘hundreds’ of consultancy staff ‘on standby’ for ‘back-office’ roles with other firms contacted for help

Troubled test-and-trace system drafts in management consultants

NBC News: The United States has surpassed 200,000 coronavirus deaths.

While the pandemic economy has devastated the local news business, there remains a cadre of small newspapers that are more energized than ever, producing essential work from the center of the nation’s newest coronavirus hot spots.Those would be college newspapers, whose student journalists have been kept busy breaking news of campus outbreaks, pushing for transparency from administrators and publishing scathing editorials about controversial reopening plans.

College newspaper reporters are the journalism heroes for the pandemic era

10.31234/osf.io/kvesm

The current COVID-19 pandemic is influencing our lives in an enormous and unprecedented way. Yet while this impact is being intensively studied with regard to a broad range of health, social, and psychological aspects, the effects of COVID-19 for creativity have been overlooked. Here, we explore COVID-19-lockdown’s consequences for creative activity. To this end, we relied on two extensive diary studies. The first, held in March 2019 (pre-pandemic), involved 78 students who reported their emotions and creativity over two weeks (927 observations). The second, conducted in March 2020 (during the pandemic and lockdown), involved 235 students who reported on their emotions, creativity, and the intensity of thinking and talking about COVID-19 over a month (5,904 observations). Multilevel meditations and dynamic structural equation modeling have shown that compared to 2019, during the lockdown, students engaged slightly, yet statistically significantly more in creative activities. Analysis of diaries collected during the pandemic also showed that students who spent more time discussing or searching for information about COVID-19 were not only more engaged in different creative activities but also declared more positive emotions. We propose potential explanations of these unexpected results along with future studies directions.

Creative Lockdown? A Daily Diary Study of Creative Activity During Pandemics

10.31234/osf.io/st2rp

Several racial disparities have been observed in the impacts of COVID-19 in the United States. In this paper, we used a representative sample of adults in Michigan to examine differences in COVID-19 impacts on Blacks and Whites in four domains: direct, perceived, political, and behavioral. We found that in the initial wave of the outbreak in May 2020, Blacks were more likely to be diagnosed or know someone who was diagnosed, or more likely to lose their job compared to Whites. Additionally, Blacks differed significantly from Whites in their assessment of COVID-19’s threat to public health and the economy, the adequacy of government responses to COVID-19, and the appropriateness of behavioral changes to mitigate COVID-19’s spread. Although in many cases these views of COVID-19 were also associated with political ideology, this association was significantly stronger for Whites than Blacks. We conclude by discussing the implications of an ongoing and highly politicized public health crisis that has racially disparate impacts in multiple domains.

Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Impacts in Michigan, USA

As faith in government hits historic lows, organizers in the U.K. are trying a new math-based approach to democracy. Would it work in the bitterly divided U.S?

Can an Algorithm Help Solve Political Paralysis?

10.31234/osf.io/5cwb4

Objective: COVID-19 is an unprecedented global crisis. Research is critically needed to identify the acute and long-term impacts of the pandemic to children’s mental health including psychosocial factors that predict resilience, recovery, and persistent long-term distress. The present study collected data in June-July 2020 to enumerate the acute impact of the pandemic on children’s mental health, including the magnitude and nature of psychiatric and psychological distress in children, and to evaluate social support as a putative psychosocial correlate of children’s distress. Method: 190 families of children aged 8 to 13 from the Windsor-Essex region of Southwestern Ontario reported on the impact of the pandemic on children’s well-being (e.g., worry, happiness); irritability; social support; and symptoms of anxiety, depressive, and posttraumatic stress disorder at baseline assessment of an ongoing longitudinal study of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Children and parents reported worsened well-being and psychological distress during the pandemic compared to retrospective report of pre-pandemic well-being. Children and parents also reported higher depressive and anxiety symptoms, but fewer PTSD symptoms, compared to epidemiological samples that used the same measures prior to the pandemic. Finally, child-perceived social support from family and friends was associated with lower symptom severity. Conclusions: Study findings indicate broad psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and are consistent with prior research that indicates a protective role of social support to mitigate the negative psychological impact of the pandemic.

The Acute Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children’s Mental Health in Southwestern Ontario

A 'small conversation' leads to a multi-layered effort to address the pandemic in rural India

‘Every drop in the ocean counts’

A robust finding in social psychology is that people judge negative events as less likely to happen to themselves than to the average person, a behavior interpreted as showing that people are “unrealistically optimistic” in their judgments of risk concerning future life events. However, we demonstrate how unbiased responses can result in data patterns commonly interpreted as indicative of optimism for purely statistical reasons. Specifically, we show how extant data from unrealistic optimism studies investigating people's comparative risk judgments are plagued by the statistical consequences of sampling constraints and the response scales used, in combination with the comparative rarity of truly negative events. We conclude that the presence of such statistical artifacts raises questions over the very existence of an optimistic bias about risk and implies that to the extent that such a bias exists, we know considerably less about its magnitude, mechanisms, and moderators than previously assumed

10.1037/a0020997

Unrealistic optimism about future life events: A cautionary note.

Efforts to change behaviour are critical in minimizing the spread of highly transmissible pandemics such as COVID-19. However, it is unclear whether individuals are aware of disease risk and alter their behaviour early in the pandemic. We investigated risk perception and self-reported engagement in protective behaviours in 1591 United States-based individuals cross-sectionally and longitudinally over the first week of the pandemic. Subjects demonstrated growing awareness of risk and reported engaging in protective behaviours with increasing frequency but underestimated their risk of infection relative to the average person in the country. Social distancing and hand washing were most strongly predicted by the perceived probability of personally being infected. However, a subgroup of individuals perceived low risk and did not engage in these behaviours. Our results highlight the importance of risk perception in early interventions during large-scale pandemics.

10.1098/rsos.200742

Changes in risk perception and self-reported protective behaviour during the first week of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

furthermore, there is no risk or probability linked to the 5 points on the Likert scale - any interpretation that assigns lower risk to lower numbers is pretty much as good as any other in terms of what I personally am entitled to think "won't happen to me" means... 5/5