Timeline for Suggestions for reducing the transmission rate?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
42 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| S Apr 3, 2020 at 21:00 | history | bounty ended | CommunityBot | ||
| S Apr 3, 2020 at 21:00 | history | notice removed | CommunityBot | ||
| Mar 27, 2020 at 5:42 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by S. Carnahan♦ | ||
| Mar 26, 2020 at 21:58 | answer | added | Martin Rubey | timeline score: 2 | |
| Mar 26, 2020 at 20:08 | answer | added | Gerhard Paseman | timeline score: 3 | |
| S Mar 26, 2020 at 19:47 | history | bounty started | fedja | ||
| S Mar 26, 2020 at 19:47 | history | notice added | fedja | Improve details | |
| Mar 26, 2020 at 18:01 | comment | added | Shahrooz | Maybe by good setting in $SIR$ model, we can found the best conditions for public transfer! Anyway, I think your question is interesting. | |
| Mar 26, 2020 at 15:40 | answer | added | fedja | timeline score: 3 | |
| Mar 26, 2020 at 12:55 | answer | added | fedja | timeline score: 3 | |
| Mar 25, 2020 at 15:35 | answer | added | Gil Kalai | timeline score: 2 | |
| Mar 25, 2020 at 8:30 | comment | added | Sextus Empiricus | "What are suggestions for reducing the transmission rate of the current epidemics?" This is a very broad (but interesting) question. Could you make it more clear what the actual question is regarding the mathematical content. Is it some sort of a question about matrices? | |
| Mar 25, 2020 at 5:30 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | Just for clarity: the row and column indices for the matrix A correspond to categories of people? | |
| Mar 24, 2020 at 7:27 | comment | added | xuq01 | @YemonChoi Also, "taking over from the epidemiologists": no, I totally don't mean that. I think we have a misunderstanding here. I know that MO is not "the right place" for such discussions, but it is totally "a useful place", and we can also make fruitful discussions while keeping ourselves within the scope and the rules of the site. In other words, I support doing "whatever we can" within the scope and rules of MO. | |
| Mar 24, 2020 at 7:18 | comment | added | xuq01 | @YemonChoi I totally agree with your point and this sentiment. But "you should not work on the academic questions you wish to because other problems are deemed more important to society" - that's not what I mean. If importance to society is the only criterion, I would have become a doctor or an environmental scientist, rather than a mathematician or computer scientist. However, I don't think that devoting a little bit of this site to relevant discussions is too much. Of course I don't mean "everyone should stop doing their current research to work on epidemiology"! | |
| Mar 24, 2020 at 1:30 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | @xuq01 Moreover, there is a certain amount of hubris in seeking to take over from the epidemiologists (as opposed to, say, working with them). Personally I think that right now the problems are less to do with modelling and more to do with data, with politics, and with resources. | |
| Mar 24, 2020 at 1:28 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | @xuq01 "Moreover, I think we should all agree that as research scientists we have a social responsibility to put our knowledge to solve real, imminent problems affecting the entirety of mankind." I respect your passion but I do not think it is shared universally, and should you succeed in landing an academic career you may feel less than happy to be told you should not work on the academic questions you wish to because other problems are deemed more important to society. | |
| Mar 24, 2020 at 1:26 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | @xuq01 I am all for online discussion and collaboration to better understand and model the spread of infection etc, but it is a long-standing tenet that MO is not a labspace for conducting research. It could provide a jump-off point for interested parties to make contact and collaborate, but this site is not a forum and it is not Wikipedia | |
| Mar 24, 2020 at 0:56 | history | edited | fedja | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 23, 2020 at 23:45 | comment | added | fedja | @JCK That is totally correct in the sense that there are plenty of experts who are doing exactly that now. However sometimes a non-expert can come with an idea the experts may miss. And that is what I'm trying to do. The question about the literature has been asked by Gil Kalai already and got good answers. It may be a good read when the infection is over. What is needed now is some simple ideas that can help to answer some urgent questions quickly. If the general problem I stated has been considered and solved, I'll sleep much better tonight :-) Upvoting your comment, but continuing. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 22:58 | comment | added | JCK | With respect, there's an enormous literature out there on mathematical epidemiology, and I think digging into that is probably a better course of action than spitballing on MO. For example, "Mathematical Epidemiology", Fred Brauer et al, Springer Lecture Notes vol 1945. Or "An Introduction to Mathematical Epidemiology", Martchava. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 20:45 | history | edited | Carlo Beenakker | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
typo in title fixed
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| Mar 23, 2020 at 18:50 | comment | added | fedja | @StevenLandsburg OK, I'll wait :-) | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 17:48 | comment | added | Steven Landsburg | @fedja: I'd love to open a chat, but not today, as I am ten minutes away from teaching my first online class. This should be an adventure! | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 17:27 | comment | added | fedja | @StevenLandsburg You are right: I've been to the grocery store 3 days ago, and cashiers looked nervous. The lower M is, the better, of course. But if the rule is implemented for 2 weeks in a row, the general public will become safe for servants and one would need only to care about servants being served. Just let them wear some badges when going as clients. Anyway, that starts looking like a meaningful discussion. Want to open a chat? | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 16:55 | answer | added | Steven Landsburg | timeline score: 6 | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 15:18 | comment | added | Steven Landsburg | @fedja: I think you've misunderstood. My point has nothing to do with the merits of voluntary action. Instead my point is that voluntary actions, whether desirable or not, are going to happen, and your model should account for them. A public servant who currently sees $M$ clients per day is going to choose to see fewer clients if he believes those clients might infect him, so a higher infection rate should lead to a lower $M$. To take $M$ as given is to deny that workers have ways of slowing themselves down so that they take fewer risks. I think that is not realistic. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 14:38 | comment | added | fedja | @StevenLandsburg M is currently defined as the number of people a public servant sees per day, which is an observable for every particular service. You are right, voluntary action is better than an order, but for mathematics the difference between the two manifests only if the interests are opposite and here they coincide. In my suggestion every person implementing the rule would reduce the off-diagonal product and thus the $\sqrt$ part, so it is not all or nothing. What do you think of the analysis itself? | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 14:23 | comment | added | Steven Landsburg | My immediate instinct as an economist is that any useful model is going to have to incorporate maximizing behavior: People will voluntarily change their behavior in response to the transmission probabilities (to protect themselves, and also, perhaps, because they care about protecting others). So the parameter $M$, for example, should be determined within the model, not taken as a constant. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 14:04 | history | edited | YCor | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
removed possibly offensive "in MattF format", copied question from title, slightly rephrased articulation at the beginning to help readability
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| Mar 23, 2020 at 12:53 | comment | added | xuq01 | That said, I agree with @MattF. that the question should be research mathematics focused. Since MathOverflow is a math forum, it would be totally appropriate (and morally correct) to discuss mathematically-oriented methods and solutions to this global crisis. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 12:52 | comment | added | xuq01 | I don't think we should artificially create so-called "coronavirus safe spaces" for ourselves, because there is not such a thing! COVID-19 is deeply influencing our life and work in all ways, and it would be absurd to pretend that research mathematics is "safe" from it. Moreover, I think we should all agree that as research scientists we have a social responsibility to put our knowledge to solve real, imminent problems affecting the entirety of mankind. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 12:28 | history | edited | YCor |
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| Mar 23, 2020 at 12:03 | comment | added | fedja | @MattF Better now? Thanks a lot for constructive criticism. I need it. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 12:02 | history | edited | fedja | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 23, 2020 at 11:17 | comment | added | fedja | @MattF Criticism accepted. Will reformat and add details today. Just give me some time. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 10:14 | comment | added | user44143 | I would upvote a version of this that asked: “here is a model; what variants would be mathematically tractable and lead to good ideas?” I am downvoting the current version, which is not focused on mathematical research. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 9:43 | comment | added | YCor | Could you add existing mathematical tags? (applied-mathematics? mathematical-biology? graph-theory? pr.probability?) Also creating "epidemics" would have been more useful than "coronavirus". | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 9:11 | comment | added | fedja | @Lucia I addressed your doubts and concerns the best I could at 5AM, now back to sleep. You are right, I should have said more in the question formulation. My only excuse is that I don't ask questions too often :-) | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 9:08 | history | edited | fedja | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 23, 2020 at 4:49 | comment | added | Lucia | Hmm much as I understand the urge to ask this question, I would have preferred MO to be a "safe space" that I could come to in order to get away from the Coronavirus. And, unlike Gil Kalai's question, I don't see any mathematical connection here. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 3:48 | history | asked | fedja | CC BY-SA 4.0 |