Month: May 2020

Complexity Weekend: Virtual COVID-19 Hackathon | May 22-24, 2020

Team Up Against COVID-19

Meet new collaborators and learn Complexity Science by doing.

Help to address the unprecedented, interconnected problems created and exposed by this pandemic. Complexity Science is an interdisciplinary and inclusive framework for studying, designing, and controlling Complex systems. Over the course of one weekend, you will learn about Complexity Science from a variety of perspectives while developing solutions in a team setting to address:

Unemployment
Shelter in Place Policy
Testing
PPE
Supply Chains
Vaccine Research
Ventilator Shortage
Mental Health
Many other ongoing problems

Here’s what to expect during this weekend experience:

This event will feature Complexity Science-inspired lectures, discussions, and workshops on Friday night and Saturday day. All attendees will then engage in a collective brainstorming and team formation process Saturday afternoon, followed by a facilitated hackathon experience with these teams on Sunday.

Source: www.complexityweekend.com

Changes in contact patterns shape the dynamics of the COVID-19 outbreak in China

Juanjuan Zhang, Maria Litvinova, Yuxia Liang, Yan Wang, Wei Wang, Shanlu Zhao, Qianhui Wu, Stefano Merler, Cécile Viboud, Alessandro Vespignani, Marco Ajelli, Hongjie Yu

Science  29 Apr 2020:
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Intense non-pharmaceutical interventions were put in place in China to stop transmission of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). As transmission intensifies in other countries, the interplay between age, contact patterns, social distancing, susceptibility to infection, and COVID-19 dynamics remains unclear. To answer these questions, we analyze contact surveys data for Wuhan and Shanghai before and during the outbreak and contact tracing information from Hunan Province. Daily contacts were reduced 7-8-fold during the COVID-19 social distancing period, with most interactions restricted to the household. We find that children 0-14 years are less susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection than adults 15-64 years of age (odd ratio 0.34, 95%CI 0.24-0.49), while in contrast, individuals over 65 years are more susceptible to infection (odd ratio 1.47, 95%CI: 1.12-1.92). Based on these data, we build a transmission model to study the impact of social distancing and school closure on transmission. We find that social distancing alone, as implemented in China during the outbreak, is sufficient to control COVID-19. While proactive school closures cannot interrupt transmission on their own, they can reduce peak incidence by 40-60% and delay the epidemic.

Source: science.sciencemag.org

How a Landmark Physics Paper from the 1970s Uncannily Describes the COVID-19 Pandemic

Phil Anderson’s article “More Is Different” describes how different levels of complexity require new ways of thinking. And as the virus multiplies and spreads, that’s just what the human race desperately needs

Source: blogs.scientificamerican.com