JoshuaBlake
Bio
Participation4
I am an (almost finished) PhD student in biostatistics and infectious disease modelling (population-level); my research focuses on Bayesian statistical methods to produce improved estimates of the number of new COVID-19 infections. During the pandemic, I was a member of SPI-M-O (the UK government committee providing expert scientific advice based on infectious disease modelling and epidemiology).
I enjoy applying my knowledge broadly, including to models of future pandemics, big picture thinking on pandemic preparedness, and forecasting.
How others can help me
I'm currently nearing PhD competition with nothing lined up for after. I'm interested in opportunities in biosecurity and global health, especially answering questions about cost-effectiveness and prioritisation using modelling / stats / epidemiology skills. Please DM if of even vague interest.
How I can help others
Happy to chat about my experience providing scientific advice to government, the biosecurity field, epidemic modelling, doing a PhD, or pretty much anything else!
Posts 5
Comments194
This seems intuitively in the right ballpark (within an order of magnitude of GiveWell), but I'd caution that, as far as I can tell, the World Bank and Bernstein et al. numbers are basically made up.
I've previously written about how to identify higher impact opportunities. In particular, we need to be careful about the counterfactuals here because a lot of the money on pandemic preparedness comes from governments who would otherwise spend on even less cost effective things.
Glad you found it useful.
Your question is hard to answer because tackling GCBRs is extremely inter-disciplinary and I'm not familiar enough with the field at large to identify clear gaps. Personal fit probably matters more than the specific field. Most work on pandemic preparedness is applicable to GCBRs, and there's lots of research groups on that.
Sorry that's not a very helpful answer. If you've got more specific questions I'm happy to try and help.
Why are you ballparking $10b when all of the examples given are many multiples of that? $100b seems like a better estimate.
I also suspect we're targeting easy to eradicate diseases. Those without animal reservoirs that will cause resurgences and where there are effective interventions. Therefore, I'd suggest this is a lower bound.
Your objections seem reasonable but I do not understand their implications due to a lack of finance background. Would you mind helping me understand how your points affect the takeaway? Specifically, do you think that the estimates presented here are biased, much more uncertain than the post implies, or something else?
This seems unnecessarily precise and long. I don't think many people would get a different takeaway from the current title but it has over twice as many words.