Dr. Fauci today!

[WiseOne]

There's been recent articles reporting studies of the level needed for herd immunity. It depends on how easily a virus is transmitted. For measles, you need over 90%. Apparently the number for COVID that has emerged from modeling studies is 20%.

I haven't read the original articles, but it might be that the definition of "herd immunity" might be a little confusing. It's not a guarantee than a given individual won't get sick, it's about preventing large outbreaks. NYC is in great shape now, and coincidentally there was a > 20% rate of positive antibody testing during random testing in May. It'll be interesting to see what happens in other states when they get to the 20% mark.

[Kriegsspiel]

modeling studies

[drumminj]

modeling studies

Thinking about what you wished you'd majored in in college?

[Smith1776]

"Modeling studies" sounds ambiguous.

Is he studying models or is he studying to be a model?

[WiseOne]

Computational models that take variables & relationships distilled from clinical/biophysical observations, make predictions, and then test if those predictions are validated in real-world data.

There are crappy papers that forget about that last part, but if carefully done modeling is a highly useful technique in biomedical research because you can explore different potential mechanisms that may be very difficult to untangle from real world data. As you might guess by now, I do this kind of research myself.

[doodle]

Computational models that take variables & relationships distilled from clinical/biophysical observations, make predictions, and then test if those predictions are validated in real-world data.

There are crappy papers that forget about that last part, but if carefully done modeling is a highly useful technique in biomedical research because you can explore different potential mechanisms that may be very difficult to untangle from real world data. As you might guess by now, I do this kind of research myself.

Curious, how much validity do you place in climate change modeling studies?

[vnatale]

Dr. Fauci is on C-Span right now taking questions from Georgetown students....

Vinny