About this session
Infectious disease scientist Dr. Yousif Shamoo joins Assistant Dean Cathy Maris for a conversation with community members regarding the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic in Houston and what possibly lies ahead. Topics include the “spreading dynamics” of COVID-19 and will it come back? How effective have social distancing and other strategies been to “flatten the curve” and what research tells us about potential seasonality of coronavirus, the role of potential antibody tests, vaccines and antiviral medications, and the factors and models scientists and public health officials use to forecast the course of coronavirus and similar diseases. Dr. Shamoo will also field questions from participants.
Yousif Shamoo, Ph.D., Professor of Biosciences and the Vice Provost for Research at Rice University
- Data
- Fundamentals of Social Distancing and Flattening
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- Basic Reproduction Number or R0 (often pronounced R-naught)
- Surprisingly some of the clearest and most insightful holistic articles came from a non-scientist Stanford business graduate named Tomas Pueyo. These are great reading!
- The network response to adding one person to a social contact space is illustrated in this summary
- See this link for a good explanation of flattening principles as explained by Angela Merkel
- Case Study Data
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- Good examples of control are South Korea and Taiwan.
- A good example of sufficient testing and contact follow up control is Germany.
- Make sure to use a logarithmic plot of the case data to see if the trend is flattening.
- Additional Resources
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If you are interested in the primary scientific reports here are some highlights but you would probably need a good background in medicine or science to get a lot out of these:
- Good basic epidemiology article from Marc Lipsitch in 2007 for 1918 flu
- Paper discussing that up to 25% of infected individuals could be asymptomatic spreaders of the virus and drive infection model outcomes by more than two-thirds
- Paper suggesting that virus shedding occurs about 24 hours BEFORE and for the first 1-2 days of presenting symptoms (fever, etc.)
- SARS CoV 2 suggesting that the virus stay persistently on surfaces and in aerosols/vapor phase
- We also have recent reports that people may re-start viral shedding after recovery
Friday, May 1, 2020
12:00 PM CT
Live Webinar
Yousif Shamoo, Ph.D.
Presented By Yousif Shamoo, Ph.D.
Dr. Yousif Shamoo is a Professor of Biosciences at Rice University and the Vice Provost for Research. He is also a member of the Rice University Crisis Management Team for which he provides COVID-19 forecasting and other scientific guidance regarding infectious diseases. Dr. Shamoo’s research lab studies the rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria (hospital ‘super pathogens’) and receives support from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. He is the recipient of the American Society for Microbiology Distinguished Lecturer award and Rice’s top teaching award, the George R. Brown Award for Excellence in Teaching.