本期节目中，Jim 与 Samuel Scarpino 进行了深入探讨，涵盖了新冠疫情流行病学与疾病监测的方方面面。他们讨论了自疫情爆发以来新冠研究中的一些重大发现，包括理解病毒进化轨迹的重要性，病例率的振荡模式，基于废水的流行病学，基因测序的当前瓶颈，奥密克戎传染性和严重程度的最新证据，HIPAA 保护带来的障碍，如何建立一个为下一次大流行做好准备的数据系统，跨学科复杂系统研究中心的的作用，一个让 Scarpino 彻夜难眠的灾难场景，群体免疫，来自手机的社交接触数据及其处理成本，美国在天气数据和国防方面的支出远超大流行数据，等等。

🦠 **新冠研究中的意外发现：** 自疫情爆发以来，新冠研究带来了许多意外发现，例如病例率的振荡模式，即病例数会呈现周期性的上升和下降趋势，这与病毒的进化和人群免疫力的变化有关。此外，研究人员还发现，基于废水的流行病学方法可以有效地监测病毒的传播情况。

🧬 **基因测序的瓶颈：** 目前，基因测序在新冠病毒研究中发挥着重要作用，但基因测序的速度和成本仍然是限制因素。研究人员需要更快速、更经济的测序方法，以便及时跟踪病毒的变异情况，为制定有效的防控策略提供依据。

📊 **数据系统的重要性：** 为了更好地应对未来的大流行，我们需要建立一个强大的数据系统，能够收集、分析和共享来自不同来源的数据，包括病例报告、基因测序结果、社交接触数据等。这个数据系统应该能够实时监测病毒的传播情况，为决策者提供及时的信息。

🌐 **跨学科合作的重要性：** 应对新冠疫情需要多学科的合作，包括流行病学、病毒学、免疫学、数据科学等。跨学科研究中心可以汇聚不同领域的专家，共同研究病毒的传播机制、防控策略以及社会影响等问题，为解决疫情问题提供更全面的解决方案。

🛡️ **群体免疫的重要性：** 群体免疫是通过接种疫苗或感染病毒后获得免疫力，从而降低病毒传播风险。群体免疫的水平越高，病毒传播的速度越慢，疫情的规模也越小。因此，提高疫苗接种率和加强公共卫生措施，对于控制疫情至关重要。

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Samuel Scarpino on Covid-19 epidemiology and disease surveillance...Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Samuel Scarpino on Covid-19 epidemiology and disease surveillance. They discuss some of the biggest surprises in Covid research since its beginning, the importance of understanding the evolutionary trajectory of the virus, the oscillation pattern of case rates, wastewater-based epidemiology, current bottlenecks in gene sequencing, the latest evidence about Omicron's contagiousness & severity, obstacles created by HIPAA protections, how to build a data system that will be ready for the next pandemic, the role of interdisciplinary complex-systems research centers, a disaster scenario that keeps Scarpino up at night, herd immunity, social contact data from phones & what it would cost to process it all, how much more the US spends on weather data & defense than on pandemic data, and much more. Episode Transcript Pandemic Prevention Institute - Omicron & Other Covid-19 Variants The Complex Alternative: Complexity Scientists on the COVID-19 Pandemic, ed. David Krakauer and Geoffrey West Transmission: SFI insights into COVID-19Samuel V. Scarpino, Ph.D. is the Managing Director of Pathogen Surveillance at The Rockefeller Foundation's Pandemic Prevention Institute. In addition, Dr. Scarpino is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and holds appointments in the Network Science Institute, Institute for Experiential AI, Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Global Resilience Institute, and Roux Institute at Northeastern University. Scarpino has 10+ years of experience translating research into decision support and data science/ML tools across diverse sectors from public health and clinical medicine to real estate and energy. From 2017 to 2020, he was Chief Strategy Officer and head of data science at Dharma Platform–a social impact–technology startup.Scarpino has nearly 100 publications in academic journals and books. His expert commentaries on science and technology have appeared in publications such as: Nature, Science, PNAS, and Nature Physics. His research has been covered by the New York Times, Wired, the Boston Globe, NPR, VICE News, National Geographic, and numerous other venues. For his contributions to complex systems science, he was made a Fellow of the ISI Foundation in 2017, an External Faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute in 2020, and an External Faculty member of the Vermont Complex Systems Center in 2021. Scarpino earned a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 2013 and was a Santa Fe Institute Omidyar Fellow from 2013 – 2016.