Upcoming Events
Colloquium on Computational Social Science/Computational Data Sciences
Sep 25, 2020, 10:00 - 11:30 AM
Super-spreaders in the Corona Epidemics: Kim Sneppen, Professor, Niels Bohr Institute
Recently a powerful example of a replicating nano-machinery entered our society. In principle it’s just a normal disease, that one attempt to model with 3 or 4 simple coupled equations with 2 important parameters: a timescale, and a replication factor (the famous R0). And then one try to guess how changes in society changes R0 and perhaps adopt some more or less strong lock-down measures. However, this virus have more “personality” than that. It behaves different in different persons, and persons behave differently. Presumably only a few of us infect a lot, while most people cause no infections. This assumption is supported by the observation that couples living together only infect each other with about 15 percent probability, indicating that most infected people are not really infectious. I will discuss this and other aspects of Covid-19 in perspective of models that describe heterogeneous individuals in a society. In particular we suggest that limiting superspreading opportunities is a cost effective strategy to mitigate Covid-19.
Since 2005, Professor Kim Sneppen has been at Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. He was a former Models of Life Center Director from 2005-2015. Currently, he is an ERC advanced grant holder. He has made significant contributions in different areas of science including nuclear physics, statistical mechanics, complex system and the last 15 years in biological physics where he worked on models of gene regulation, epigenetics, and lately on development of the early embryo with its characteristic symmetry breaking events.
Professor Sneppen will talk about what concerns us all these days, the Covid-19 and how to stop this epidemic with the lightest form of intervention.
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