I would strongly encourage people to try brainstorming some questions. Even if you don’t come up with anything directly useful you might jog someone else’s creativity. Remember to go for quantity over quality on your first pass.
Epidemiology questions that, while we probably can’t do much about, would be useful to try to ad hoc model given how bad official info has been so far:
Are estimates of doubling time off from bad modeling of rapid test ramping making it seem faster than it is?
What is actual hospital elasticity? Is there an existing gathering of data on this from previous disasters?
How long do human trials need to be before they are rolled out to the majority of the population? Just to the extremely vulnerable? What is the gears level model here?
What granularity of travel restriction makes the most sense? In general, how can cities and counties act knowing that federal response may (will continue to be) be too slow?
Which physical objects have longer supply chains and thus can be expected to be less robust to disruption?
What mental health problems can we expect to spike hard in the next 1-6 months given people feeling shut in and helpless?
What are the most predictable second order disasters?
Does moral hazard show up anywhere here?
What’s most likely to be ignored during this? Civil liberties? Already seen discussion of that. What’s even more ignored?
I’ve seen people from a Stanford lab asking on facebook about being put in touch with someone from an MIT lab. How can lab cross talk increase?
If UV 210nm turns out to be effective, how can you build your own flashlight/lightsaber (from the virus’ perspective) out of off the shelf parts?
Which continuing failures of the FDA are highly predictable? What can be done to mitigate that expectation at the hospital and lab level?
How can models take into account reference classes. e.g. Many models are averaging naively which means essentially all the data points are from the least controlled regions with the widest error bars.
I would strongly encourage people to try brainstorming some questions. Even if you don’t come up with anything directly useful you might jog someone else’s creativity. Remember to go for quantity over quality on your first pass.
Thanks Romeo.
Setting a 5 minute timer:
How will this effect markets / supply chains etc, assuming it lasts for different lengths of time.
How likely are various containment interventions by governments?
How does de-escalating quarantine / lock-down in countries that have instituted those work? Is there a chance the the virus will bounce back after de-escalation?
How long do I have to wait before interacting with an object / location in order to make sure it is safe? (eg could I rent an airbnb, or a rental car, several days in advance, and then use it without risk of catching the virus?)
How bad is this really for people in my age group? I would love to have information from people I know, who catch it.
Pushing to get to a total of 10 items:
How much health risk is there to social isolation?
Do I still need to have extreme hand-washing / disinfectant procedures if I’m not leaving the house?
What could be done to help emergency workers and other parts of the medical system not get sick?
Are there resources on maintaining a balanced diet of non-perishable foods?
What skills should I be rapidly acquiring to be most useful to this whole situation?
And one more.
Am I better off if I drive to some cabin out in the boonies?
The requirements on multiplying ventilator use through sharing is
1. Equal tube lengths. 2. Equal lung capacity. 3. Equal lung resistance. 4. Same patient weight (approx) the question is can any of these requirements be broken though clever use of 3d printed valves or other JIT solutions?
What is actual hospital elasticity? Is there an existing gathering of data on this from previous disasters?
No answer here but a subquestion might be what are the essentials for an effective “hospital bed” for a COVID-19 patient? What are the binding/constraining elements? We know ventilators for critical cases are one. Others? What about those for serious versus critical—if we can treat serious cases well but in some makeshift hospital room (say an empty hotel) does that help us limit the demand for ICU space?
Second thought here. You have investors like Ackman suggesting a slow bleed process may well kill hotel owners. Is there an opportunity to address two things as once? If government (and insurance companies) can support quarantining and treating less serious cases in hotels then the industry gets some relief and society perhaps gets both better allocation of medical resources and improved quarantines.
I would strongly encourage people to try brainstorming some questions. Even if you don’t come up with anything directly useful you might jog someone else’s creativity. Remember to go for quantity over quality on your first pass.
Epidemiology questions that, while we probably can’t do much about, would be useful to try to ad hoc model given how bad official info has been so far:
Are estimates of doubling time off from bad modeling of rapid test ramping making it seem faster than it is?
What is actual hospital elasticity? Is there an existing gathering of data on this from previous disasters?
How long do human trials need to be before they are rolled out to the majority of the population? Just to the extremely vulnerable? What is the gears level model here?
What granularity of travel restriction makes the most sense? In general, how can cities and counties act knowing that federal response may (will continue to be) be too slow?
Which physical objects have longer supply chains and thus can be expected to be less robust to disruption?
What mental health problems can we expect to spike hard in the next 1-6 months given people feeling shut in and helpless?
What are the most predictable second order disasters?
Does moral hazard show up anywhere here?
What’s most likely to be ignored during this? Civil liberties? Already seen discussion of that. What’s even more ignored?
I’ve seen people from a Stanford lab asking on facebook about being put in touch with someone from an MIT lab. How can lab cross talk increase?
If UV 210nm turns out to be effective, how can you build your own flashlight/lightsaber (from the virus’ perspective) out of off the shelf parts?
Which continuing failures of the FDA are highly predictable? What can be done to mitigate that expectation at the hospital and lab level?
How can models take into account reference classes. e.g. Many models are averaging naively which means essentially all the data points are from the least controlled regions with the widest error bars.
Thanks Romeo.
Setting a 5 minute timer:
How will this effect markets / supply chains etc, assuming it lasts for different lengths of time.
How likely are various containment interventions by governments?
How does de-escalating quarantine / lock-down in countries that have instituted those work? Is there a chance the the virus will bounce back after de-escalation?
How long do I have to wait before interacting with an object / location in order to make sure it is safe? (eg could I rent an airbnb, or a rental car, several days in advance, and then use it without risk of catching the virus?)
How bad is this really for people in my age group? I would love to have information from people I know, who catch it.
Pushing to get to a total of 10 items:
How much health risk is there to social isolation?
Do I still need to have extreme hand-washing / disinfectant procedures if I’m not leaving the house?
What could be done to help emergency workers and other parts of the medical system not get sick?
Are there resources on maintaining a balanced diet of non-perishable foods?
What skills should I be rapidly acquiring to be most useful to this whole situation?
And one more.
Am I better off if I drive to some cabin out in the boonies?
The requirements on multiplying ventilator use through sharing is
1. Equal tube lengths.
2. Equal lung capacity.
3. Equal lung resistance.
4. Same patient weight (approx)
the question is can any of these requirements be broken though clever use of 3d printed valves or other JIT solutions?
No answer here but a subquestion might be what are the essentials for an effective “hospital bed” for a COVID-19 patient? What are the binding/constraining elements? We know ventilators for critical cases are one. Others? What about those for serious versus critical—if we can treat serious cases well but in some makeshift hospital room (say an empty hotel) does that help us limit the demand for ICU space?
Second thought here. You have investors like Ackman suggesting a slow bleed process may well kill hotel owners. Is there an opportunity to address two things as once? If government (and insurance companies) can support quarantining and treating less serious cases in hotels then the industry gets some relief and society perhaps gets both better allocation of medical resources and improved quarantines.