Biggest carbon dioxide drop: Real-time data show COVID-19's massive impact on global emissions

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201014082806.htm





While the ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to threaten millions of lives around the world, the first half of 2020 saw an unprecedented decline in CO2 emissions -- larger than during the financial crisis of 2008, the oil crisis of the 1979, or even World War II. An international team of researchers has found that in the first six months of this year, 8.8 percent less carbon dioxide was emitted than in the same period in 2019 -- a total decrease of 1551 million tonnes. The groundbreaking study not only offers a much more precise look at COVID-19's impact on global energy consumption than previous analyses. It also suggests what fundamental steps could be taken to stabilize the global climate in the aftermath of the pandemic.


"What makes our study unique is the analysis of meticulously collected near-real-time data," explains lead author Zhu Liu from the Department of Earth System Science at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "By looking at the daily figures compiled by the Carbon Monitor research initiative we were able to get a much faster and more accurate overview, including timelines that show how emissions decreases have corresponded to lockdown measures in each country. In April, at the height of the first wave of Corona infections, when most major countries shut down their public life and parts of their economy, emissions even declined by 16.9 %. Overall, the various outbreaks resulted in emission drops that we normally see only on a short-term basis on holidays such as Christmas or the Chinese Spring Festival."

The study, published in the latest issue of Nature Communications, shows which parts of the global economy were most impacted. "The greatest reduction of emissions was observed in the ground transportation sector," explains Daniel Kammen, professor and Chair of the Energy and Resources Group and also professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. "Largely because of working from home restrictions, transport CO2 emissions decreased by 40 % worldwide. In contrast, the power and industry sectors contributed less to the decline, with -22 % and -17 %, respectively, as did the aviation and shipping sectors. Surprisingly, even the residential sector saw a small emissions drop of 3 %: largely because of an abnormally warm winter in the northern hemisphere, heating energy consumption decreased with most people staying at home all day during lockdown periods."

To paint this comprehensive and multidimensional picture, the researchers based their estimates on a wide array of data: precise, hourly datasets of electricity power production in 31 countries, daily vehicle traffic in more than 400 cities worldwide, daily global passenger flights, monthly production data for industry in 62 countries as well as fuel consumption data for building emissions in more than 200 countries.

The researchers also found strong rebound effects. With the exception of a continuing decrease of emissions stemming from the transportation sector, by July 2020, as soon as lockdown measures were lifted, most economies resumed their usual levels of emitting CO2. But even if they remained at their historically low levels, this would have a rather minuscule effect on the long-term CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

Thus, the authors stress that the only valid strategy to stabilize the climate is a complete overhaul of the industry and commerce sector. "While the CO2 drop is unprecedented, decreases of human activities cannot be the answer," says Co-Author Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "Instead we need structural and transformational changes in our energy production and consumption systems. Individual behavior is certainly important, but what we really need to focus on is reducing the carbon intensity of our global economy."




Story Source:

Materials provided by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:
Zhu Liu, Philippe Ciais, Zhu Deng, Ruixue Lei, Steven J. Davis, Sha Feng, Bo Zheng, Duo Cui, Xinyu Dou, Biqing Zhu, Rui Guo, Piyu Ke, Taochun Sun, Chenxi Lu, Pan He, Yuan Wang, Xu Yue, Yilong Wang, Yadong Lei, Hao Zhou, Zhaonan Cai, Yuhui Wu, Runtao Guo, Tingxuan Han, Jinjun Xue, Olivier Boucher, Eulalie Boucher, Frédéric Chevallier, Katsumasa Tanaka, Yimin Wei, Haiwang Zhong, Chongqing Kang, Ning Zhang, Bin Chen, Fengming Xi, Miaomiao Liu, François-Marie Bréon, Yonglong Lu, Qiang Zhang, Dabo Guan, Peng Gong, Daniel M. Kammen, Kebin He, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. Near-real-time monitoring of global CO2 emissions reveals the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18922-7


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Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). "Biggest carbon dioxide drop: Real-time data show COVID-19's massive impact on global emissions." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 October 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201014082806.htm>.




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Waiting for a vaccine and the collaborative research alternative

https://rwer.wordpress.com/2020/10/17/waiting-for-a-vaccine-and-the-collaborative-research-alternative/





October 17, 2020deanbaker1Leave a commentGo to comments



from Dean Baker

It seems increasingly likely that China will begin providing vaccines to its own people, as well as those in some other countries, by December, and possibly as early as next month. The prospect of a vaccine being available that soon has to look good to people here, now that the Trump administration’s pandemic control efforts have completely failed. The whole country would like to get back to normal, but that doesn’t seem like a serious possibility until we have an effective vaccine widely available.

It seems China’s leading vaccine makers got ahead of the ones in the U.S. and Europe by using the old-fashioned dead virus approach to developing a vaccine. This is well-known technology that they were apparently able to quickly adapt for a vaccine providing protection against the coronavirus. This allowed for them to get into the field sooner with large-scale Phase 3 tests. It also has apparently created fewer issues with side effects than the mRNA vaccines being pursued here. In addition, the dead virus vaccines do not require super-cold storage, like the mRNA vaccines. That will be a huge problem in the developing world, but also a serious logistic problem even in the United States.

China has followed a path of questionable safety in carrying out large-scale vaccination on emergency use authorization. The people being vaccinated were not just front-line workers in hospitals at high risk of catching the virus, but also students traveling abroad and others who were not in obviously high risk categories. Several hundred thousand people have now received one of China’s vaccines on this basis.

While we may not approve of China’s lax standards, we can still learn from its experience. At this point, we can be fairly well assured that its leading vaccines do not have harmful short-term side effects.

If the United States had pursued a route of open collaborative research, we would now be in a position to start mass producing China’s leading vaccines and distributing them as soon as evidence of its effectiveness was sufficiently established to satisfy the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) standards for approval. Collaborative research would have meant that all the results from clinical trials were freely shared as soon as they were available. This means that we would have the results at the same time as China’s health safety agency, and of course companies here would be free to run their own trials with China’s vaccines.

This sort of collaboration would have had to have been negotiated. Donald Trump, with his “America First” rants had no interest in international collaboration and therefore never tried to negotiate any plan for open research with equitable cost-sharing across countries. Unfortunately, leading Democrats, with their determination to use patent monopolies to increase inequality, never sought to raise the issue either.

As a result of this failed leadership, we may be waiting months longer than necessary for our lives to get back to normal. This will mean tens of thousands of avoidable deaths and hundreds of thousands of avoidable infections, but hey, at least we preserved the idea that we need government-granted patent monopolies to finance research. And, we can create many high-paying jobs for economists and policy types trying to figure out ways to combat inequality.

Wolff Responds: Pandemic Unemployment: in the US, not in Europe

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23idXjEGJ6Q&ab_channel=RichardDWolff

Scientific consensus on the COVID-19 pandemic: we need to act now

Nisreen A Alwan
Rochelle Ann Burgess
Simon Ashworth
Rupert Beale
Nahid Bhadelia
Debby Bogaert
et al.
Show all authors

Published:October 15, 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32153-X



https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32153-X/fulltext



Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected more than 35 million people globally, with more than 1 million deaths recorded by WHO as of Oct 12, 2020. As a second wave of COVID-19 affects Europe, and with winter approaching, we need clear communication about the risks posed by COVID-19 and effective strategies to combat them. Here, we share our view of the current evidence-based consensus on COVID-19.
SARS-CoV-2 spreads through contact (via larger droplets and aerosols), and longer-range transmission via aerosols, especially in conditions where ventilation is poor. Its high infectivity,
1 combined with the susceptibility of unexposed populations to a new virus, creates conditions for rapid community spread. The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 is several-fold higher than that of seasonal influenza,
2 and infection can lead to persisting illness, including in young, previously healthy people (ie, long COVID).
3 It is unclear how long protective immunity lasts,
4 and, like other seasonal coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 is capable of re-infecting people who have already had the disease, but the frequency of re-infection is unknown.
5 Transmission of the virus can be mitigated through physical distancing, use of face coverings, hand and respiratory hygiene, and by avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. Rapid testing, contact tracing, and isolation are also critical to controlling transmission. WHO has been advocating for these measures since early in the pandemic.
In the initial phase of the pandemic, many countries instituted lockdowns (general population restrictions, including orders to stay at home and work from home) to slow the rapid spread of the virus. This was essential to reduce mortality,
6,
7 prevent health-care services from being overwhelmed, and buy time to set up pandemic response systems to suppress transmission following lockdown. Although lockdowns have been disruptive, substantially affecting mental and physical health, and harming the economy, these effects have often been worse in countries that were not able to use the time during and after lockdown to establish effective pandemic control systems. In the absence of adequate provisions to manage the pandemic and its societal impacts, these countries have faced continuing restrictions.
This has understandably led to widespread demoralisation and diminishing trust. The arrival of a second wave and the realisation of the challenges ahead has led to renewed interest in a so-called herd immunity approach, which suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak in the low-risk population while protecting the vulnerable. Proponents suggest this would lead to the development of infection-acquired population immunity in the low-risk population, which will eventually protect the vulnerable.
This is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.
Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed. Uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity
3 and mortality across the whole population. In addition to the human cost, this would impact the workforce as a whole and overwhelm the ability of health-care systems to provide acute and routine care. Furthermore, there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection,
4 and the endemic transmission that would be the consequence of waning immunity would present a risk to vulnerable populations for the indefinite future. Such a strategy would not end the COVID-19 pandemic but result in recurrent epidemics, as was the case with numerous infectious diseases before the advent of vaccination. It would also place an unacceptable burden on the economy and health-care workers, many of whom have died from COVID-19 or experienced trauma as a result of having to practise disaster medicine. Additionally, we still do not understand who might suffer from long COVID.
3 Defining who is vulnerable is complex, but even if we consider those at risk of severe illness, the proportion of vulnerable people constitute as much as 30% of the population in some regions.
8 Prolonged isolation of large swathes of the population is practically impossible and highly unethical. Empirical evidence from many countries shows that it is not feasible to restrict uncontrolled outbreaks to particular sections of society. Such an approach also risks further exacerbating the socioeconomic inequities and structural discriminations already laid bare by the pandemic. Special efforts to protect the most vulnerable are essential but must go hand-in-hand with multi-pronged population-level strategies.
Once again, we face rapidly accelerating increase in COVID-19 cases across much of Europe, the USA, and many other countries across the world. It is critical to act decisively and urgently. Effective measures that suppress and control transmission need to be implemented widely, and they must be supported by financial and social programmes that encourage community responses and address the inequities that have been amplified by the pandemic. Continuing restrictions will probably be required in the short term, to reduce transmission and fix ineffective pandemic response systems, in order to prevent future lockdowns. The purpose of these restrictions is to effectively suppress SARS-CoV-2 infections to low levels that allow rapid detection of localised outbreaks and rapid response through efficient and comprehensive find, test, trace, isolate, and support systems so life can return to near-normal without the need for generalised restrictions. Protecting our economies is inextricably tied to controlling COVID-19. We must protect our workforce and avoid long-term uncertainty.
Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories. The evidence is very clear: controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive within the coming months. We cannot afford distractions that undermine an effective response; it is essential that we act urgently based on the evidence.
To support this call for action, sign the John Snow Memorandum.
This work was not in any way directly or indirectly supported, funded, or sponsored by any organisation or entity. NA has experienced prolonged COVID-19 symptoms. AH advises Ligandal (unpaid advisory role), outside the submitted work. FK is collaborating with Pfizer on animal models of SARS-CoV-2, and with the University of Pennsylvania on mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. FK has also filed IP regarding serological assays and for SARS-CoV-2, which name him as inventor (pending). PK reports personal fees from Kymab, outside the submitted work; PK also has a patent ‘Monoclonal antibodies to treat and prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2 (Kymab)’ pending and is a scientific advisor to the Serology Working Group (Public Heath England), Testing Advisory Group (Department of Health and Social Care) and the Vaccines Task force (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy). ML has received honoraria from Bristol-Meyers Squibb and Sanofi Pasteur, outside the submitted work. MM is a member of Independent SAGE and Research Director European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, which manages the COVID Health Systems Response Monitor. DS sits on the Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Group, has attended SAGE meetings, and is on the Royal Society DELVE initiative feeding into SAGE. CS reports grants from BMS, Ono-Pharmaceuticals, and Archer Dx (collaboration in minimal residual disease sequencing technologies), outside the submitted work; personal fees from Bristol Myers Squibb, Roche-Ventana, Ono Pharmaceutical, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Celgene, Illumina, MSD, Sarah Canon Research Institute, Genentech, Bicycle Therapeutics, and Medicixi, outside the submitted work; personal fees and stock options from GRAIL and Achilles Therapeutics, outside the submitted work; and stock options from Epic Biosciences and Apogen Biotechnologies, outside the submitted work. GY directs the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, which has received grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for policy research that includes policy analysis on COVID-19 control. All other authors declare no competing interests within the submitted work.
Signatories are listed in the appendix.
Supplementary Material


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Article Info
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Published: October 15, 2020
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32153-X
Copyright
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ScienceDirectAccess this article on ScienceDirect

TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL | Official Trailer HD

 

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COVID Misinformation Is Killing People

This “infodemic” has to stop

By Amir Bagherpour, Ali Nouri on October 11, 2020




https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-misinformation-is-killing-people1/




The confluence of misinformation and infectious disease isn’t unique to COVID-19. Misinformation contributed to the spread of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and it plagues efforts to educate the public on the importance of vaccinating against measles. But when it comes to COVID-19, the pandemic has come to be defined by a tsunami of persistent misinformation to the public on everything from the utility of masks and the efficacy of school closures, to the wisdom behind social distancing, and even the promise of untested remedies. According to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, areas of the country exposed to television programming that downplayed the severity of the pandemic saw greater numbers of cases and deaths—because people didn’t follow public health precautions.

In the United States, misinformation spread by elements of the media, by public leaders and by individuals with large social media platforms has contributed to a disproportionately large share of COVID-19 burden: we house 4 percent of the global population but account for 22 percent of global COVID-19 deaths. With winter around the corner and people spending more time indoors, it is more imperative than ever that we counter misinformation and clearly communicate risks to the public; in addition, as we await the arrival of a vaccine, it is equally important to arm the public with facts. We have work to do: a recent poll found that just half of the American public plans to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Below are some key recommendations for the science community, public health professionals, members of the public, and industry on what they can do to effectively blunt the effect of misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 response.

A coordinated campaign of influencers supporting science and public health. A study of COVID-19 messaging on social media revealed misinformation from politicians, celebrities and other prominent figures made up about 20 percent of claims but accounted for 69 percent of total social media engagement. Therefore, public health figures who have credibility must partner with social media influencers who have the reach. Harnessing the wide reach of local, regional and national influencers from a wide swath of sectors both within and outside of the public health community is necessary to counter the large volume of misinformation thrust into the information ecosystem. A coordinated campaign of influencers that combines subject matter experts with entertainers, political figures, businesspeople and civil society sectors will help to amplify consistent public health guidance across social media, digital and traditional media outlets.

An aggressive and transparent effort by social media companies working in cooperation with governments to remove markedly false information regarding COVID-19. The single largest category of misleading or false claims (39 percent) are mischaracterizations or misleading messages about actions or policies of public authorities. Although social media companies are increasing their efforts to remove misinformation regarding COVID-19 from their platforms, their efforts are largely reactive and delayed, during which damaging information circulates among unwitting viewers. That’s why public health officials must work with social media companies through robust partnerships in order to identify common sources of misinformation; proactively anticipate future misinformation from those sources; and enable its removal in a near real-time fashion. To be credible, this process must be robust, transparent and nonpartisan.

Beyond debunking and removal of false information: a robust public messaging campaign that goes further than the government’s traditional one-way message. Social media is popular because it provides individuals, groups and institutions the opportunity to have dynamic conversations. However, public health messages from officials typically need to be cleared through a lengthy review process that does not allow officials to converse in real time with audiences in order to educate and debunk misinformation. To be more effective, public health officials should develop standards and guidance that allows them to dynamically interact with the public in a more timely fashion. Dynamic conversations and proactive messaging between public health officials and the public can be more impactful than removing false information from social media platforms, especially since removal typically occurs long after a significant number of individuals have already been exposed to the false message. A more promising approach is for public health officials and science- and health-based institutions to provide the public with a steady stream of facts.

Detect, understand and expose COVID-19-related misinformation through data science and behavioral analytics. Any effort aimed at conveying facts to large audiences requires harnessing and understanding audience data. This is what makes the advertisement industry so powerful. Unfortunately, our public health communicators have not adopted basic capabilities to which industry is accustomed. These capabilities include understanding the preferences of various sectors of the public active on social media platforms so as to deliver timely and salient information that resonate with them. These are capabilities routinely used by the ad industry, and they would serve the public health sector well in its effort to better understand audiences and in order to persuade them in favor of preferred behaviors.

Match public health promises with the capabilities of a government that can deliver Lessons from past public health mass media campaigns indicate that any advice from public health officials must be matched with the ability to deliver services to those audiences. For example, guidance for testing must be accompanied by readily accessible COVID-19 tests. Guidance for wearing masks must be met with ample availability of masks. And any education campaign on the efficacy of vaccines or therapeutics must be met with a sufficient availability and affordability of those measures.

Effectively countering the misinformation infodemic surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic will play a significant role in flattening the curve and ultimately defeating the virus. Lessons from communicable diseases highlight the fact that aggressive public health communications strategies are imperative in curbing disease. In the age of social media, the spread of misinformation provides a major hindrance to those efforts and requires an even more sophisticated response. The execution of the recommendations detailed above will help to effectively counter misinformation surrounding the current pandemic and help to protect us from the next one.

THE JOHN SNOW MEMORANDUM

https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/



Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected more than 35 million people globally, with more than 1 million deaths recorded by the World Health Organization as of Oct 12, 2020. As a second wave of COVID-19 affects Europe, and with winter approaching, we need clear communication about the risks posed by COVID-19 and effective strategies to combat them. Here, we share our view of the current evidence-based consensus on COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2 spreads through contact (via larger droplets and aerosols), and longer-range transmission via aerosols, especially in conditions where ventilation is poor. Its high infectivity(1) combined with the susceptibility of unexposed populations to a new virus, creates conditions for rapid community spread. The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 is several-fold higher than that of seasonal influenza(2) and infection can lead to persisting illness, including in young, previously healthy people (ie, long COVID(3)). It is unclear how long protective immunity lasts(4) and, like other seasonal coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 is capable of re-infecting people who have already had the disease, but the frequency of re-infection is unknown(5). Transmission of the virus can be mitigated through physical distancing, use of face coverings, hand and respiratory hygiene, and by avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. Rapid testing, contact tracing, and isolation are also critical to controlling transmission. The World Health Organization has been advocating for these measures since early in the pandemic.

In the initial phase of the pandemic, many countries instituted lockdowns (general population restrictions, including orders to stay at home and work from home) to slow the rapid spread of the virus. This was essential to reduce mortality(6),(7) prevent health-care services from being overwhelmed, and buy time to set up pandemic response systems to suppress transmission following lockdown. Although lockdowns have been disruptive, substantially affecting mental and physical health, and harming the economy, these effects have often been worse in countries that were not able to use the time during and after lockdown to establish effective pandemic control systems. In the absence of adequate provisions to manage the pandemic and its societal impacts, these countries have faced continuing restrictions.

This has understandably led to widespread demoralisation and diminishing trust. The arrival of a second wave and the realisation of the challenges ahead has led to renewed interest in a so-called herd immunity approach, which suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak in the low-risk population while protecting the vulnerable. Proponents suggest this would lead to the development of infection-acquired population immunity in the low-risk population, which will eventually protect the vulnerable. This is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.

Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed. Uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity(3) and mortality across the whole population. In addition to the human cost, this would impact the workforce as a whole and overwhelm the ability of healthcare systems to provide acute and routine care.

Furthermore, there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection(4) and the endemic transmission that would be the consequence of waning immunity would present a risk to vulnerable populations for the indefinite future. Such a strategy would not end the COVID-19 pandemic but result in recurrent epidemics, as was the case with numerous infectious diseases before the advent of vaccination. It would also place an unacceptable burden on the economy and healthcare workers, many of whom have died from COVID-19 or experienced trauma as a result of having to practise disaster medicine. Additionally, we still do not understand who might suffer from long COVID(3). Defining who is vulnerable is complex, but even if we consider those at risk of severe illness, the proportion of vulnerable people constitute as much as 30% of the population in some regions(8). Prolonged isolation of large swathes of the population is practically impossible and highly unethical. Empirical evidence from many countries shows that it is not feasible to restrict uncontrolled outbreaks to particular sections of society. Such an approach also risks further exacerbating the socioeconomic inequities and structural discriminations already laid bare by the pandemic. Special efforts to protect the most vulnerable are essential but must go hand-in-hand with multi-pronged population-level strategies.

Once again, we face rapidly accelerating increase in COVID-19 cases across much of Europe, the USA, and many other countries across the world. It is critical to act decisively and urgently. Effective measures that suppress and control transmission need to be implemented widely, and they must be supported by financial and social programmes that encourage community responses and address the inequities that have been amplified by the pandemic. Continuing restrictions will probably be required in the short term, to reduce transmission and fix ineffective pandemic response systems, in order to prevent future lockdowns. The purpose of these restrictions is to effectively suppress SARS-CoV-2 infections to low levels that allow rapid detection of localised outbreaks and rapid response through efficient and comprehensive find, test, trace, isolate, and support systems so life can return to near-normal without the need for generalised restrictions. Protecting our economies is inextricably tied to controlling COVID-19. We must protect our workforce and avoid long-term uncertainty.

Japan, Vietnam, and New Zealand, to name a few countries, have shown that robust public health responses can control transmission, allowing life to return to near-normal, and there are many such success stories. The evidence is very clear: controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive within the coming months.

We cannot afford distractions that undermine an effective response; it is essential that we act urgently based on the evidence.

To support this call for action, sign the John Snow Memorandum.

The John Snow Memorandum was originally published in The Lancet on 14 October 2020 .

SIGNATORIES



Prof. Kristina Alexanderson, Stockholm, Sweden

Dr. Rochelle Ann Burgess, Lecturer in Global Health, Institute for Global Health, University College London, UK
Prof. Laura Bear, Professor and Head of Department, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics, UK

Prof. Reinhard Busse, co-director, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies; Professor and Head of the Department of Health Care Management, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
Prof. David Fisman, Professor, Division of Epidemiology, University of Toronto, Canada


Prof. Lynn R Goldman, Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health, Michael and Lori Milken Dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, US

Mr. Adam Hamdy, Ligandal Genetic Medicine, San Francisco, US

Prof. David Hunter, Richard Doll Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine; Director, Translational Epidemiology Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, UK
Prof. Paul Kellam, Professor of Virus Genomics, Imperial College London and VP of Infectious Diseases and Vaccines, Kymab Ltd, UK

Prof. Ilona Kickbusch, Founding director and Chair, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland

Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, US

Prof. Jose M Martin-Moreno, Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Valencia, Spain

Prof. Alan McNally, Professor in Microbial Evolutionary Genomics, Director of Institute of Microbiology and Infection, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK

Prof. Julian Mamo, President, Chronic Diseases Section, European Public Health Association, Associate Professor, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine & Surgery Medical School, Mater Dei Hospital, Msida, Malta

Prof. Jacob Moran-Gilad, Professor of Clinical Microbiology, School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, Israel
Dr. Ali Nouri, President of the Federation of American Scientists, US

Dr Alexandra Phelan, Assistant Professor, Center for Global Health Science & Security, Georgetown University, US

Dr. Saskia Popescu, Term Assistant Professor, Biodefense Graduate Program, George Mason University, US

Prof. Stephen Reicher, Bishop Wardlaw Professor, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St. Andrews, UK

Dr. Johanna Riha, Research Fellow, United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Prof. Carlo Signorelli, Professor of Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Parma University of Vita-Salute San Raffaele of Milan, Italy

Prof. Devi Sridhar, Professor and Chair of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh, UK

Prof. Walter Ricciardi, Professor of Hygiene and Public Health, Director of the Department of Public Health and Deputy Head of the Faculty of Medicine, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
Prof. Joshua Silver, Professor of Physics, University of Oxford, UK

Prof. Charles Swanton, Group Leader CEGI Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, UK; Cancer Research UK Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence, UCL Cancer Institute, London, UK

Prof. Rochelle P. Walensky, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, USA

Dr. Hisham Ziauddeen, Clinical Senior Research Associate, Dept. of Psychiatry & Wellcome Trust-MRC, Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, UK; Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist CAMEO, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust, UK

Dr. Christian L. Althaus, Head of Interfaculty Platform for Data and Computational Science (INPUT) Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern, Switzerland

Dr. Simon Ashworth, Clinical Director of Critical Care, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, UK

Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, Medical Director, Special Pathogens Unit, Boston Medical Center; Associate Professor, Section of Infectious Diseases, National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, Boston University School of Medicine, US
Dr. Colin J. Carlson, Assistant Research Professor, Centre for Global Health Science and Security, Georgetown University, US

Prof. Tim Colbourn, Associate Professor, Institute for Global Health, University College London, UK

Prof. John Drury, Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange in the School of Psychology, University of Sussex, SPI-B advisory sub-group of SAGE, Independent SAGE, UK

Prof. Isabella Eckerle, Head of the Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases, University Hospitals of Geneva and University of Geneva, Switzerland

Prof. Karl Friston, Wellcome Principal Research Fellow and Scientific Director, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging; Professor, Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK

Prof. Trisha Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Co-Director, Interdisciplinary Research In Health Sciences (IRIHS) Unit, UK
Prof. William Hanage, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, US
Dr. Zoë Hyde, Researcher, Western Australian Centre for Health and Ageing, The University of Western Australia, Australia

Dr. Michelle Kelly-Irving, Inserm research scientist, Epidemiology and Public Health Unit, Inserm & Université Toulouse III, France
Prof. Sir David King, Former UK Chief Scientific Adviser, Independent SAGE, UK


Prof. Alastair H Leyland , Professor, Institute of Health and Wellbeing, Associate Director, MRC/CSO Social & Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, UK

Prof. Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Research Director, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, and Independent SAGE, UK

Dr. Michael Mina, Assistant Professor, Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA

Prof. Susan Michie, Professor of Health Psychology, University College London and Independent SAGE, UK

Prof. Elias Mossialos, Brian Abel-Smith Professor of Health Policy, Deputy Head of Department, London School of Economics, UK

Prof. Anna Odone, ​University of Pavia, Italy
Prof. Deenan Pillay, Professor of Virology, Division of Infection and Immunity, University College London and IndieSAGE, UK

Dr. Viola Priesemann, MPRG Group Leader & Fellow of the Schiemann Kolleg, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization & Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Göttingen, Germany

Prof. Ken Rice, Professor of Computational Astrophysics, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, UK

Prof. Tara Smith, Professor of Epidemiology, Kent State University College of Public Health, US

Prof. Kevin Watkins, CEO, Save the Children, UK


Dr. Clare Wenham, Assistant Professor of Global Health Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Prof. Gavin Yamey, Professor of Global Health and Public Policy, Duke University, USA
Dr. Nisreen Alwan, Associate Professor in Public Health, University of Southampton; Honorary Consultant in Public Health, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, UK
Dr. Rupert Beale, Group Leader, Cell Biology of Infection, Francis Crick Institute, UK


Prof. Debby Bogaert, Scottish Senior Clinical Fellow, Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Center for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh, and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, UK
Dr. Yves Charpak, Fondation Charpak, l’esprit des sciences, France

Prof. Anthony Costello, Independent SAGE, UK


Prof. Jennifer Dowd, Associate Professor of Demography and Population Health, Deputy Director, Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, University of Oxford, UK

Prof. Jacques Fellay, Associate Professor, Groupe Fellay, EPFL; Head of Precision Medicine at the University Hospital (CHUV) in Lausanne, Switzerland

Dr. Valentina Gallo, Neuroepidemiologist, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Dr. Deepti Gurdasani, UKRI Health-Data Research UK Fellow, and Senior Lecturer in Machine Learning, Queen Mary University of London, UK

Dr. Emma Hodcroft, Molecular Epidemiology Postdoctoral Fellow, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland

Prof. David Ingleby, Centre for Social Science and Global Health, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Prof. Kamlesh Khunti, Professor of Primary Care Diabetes & Vascular Medicine, University of Leicester and Independent SAGE, UK

Prof. Florian Krammer, Professor of Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, US

Prof. Marc Lipsitch, Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Director, Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, USA
Dr. Paul McLaren, Adjunct Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Canada
Dr. Maimuna S. Majumder, Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP), Boston Children’s Hospital, Research Associate, Harvard Medical School, US

Prof. Melinda Mills, Nuffield Professor of Sociology at Nuffield College and Head of the Department of Sociology, Director, Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, University of Oxford, UK

Prof. Stuart Neil, Professor of Virology, Head of Infectious Diseases Department, King’s College London, UK

Prof. Christina Pagel, Professor of Operational Research, Clinical Operational Research Unit, University College London and Independent SAGE, UK
Dr. Dominic Pimenta, Hospital doctor, Chairman, Healthcare Workers Foundation (HEROES), UK
Dr. Angela L. Rasmussen, Associate Research Scientist, Center for Infection and Immunity, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, US

Prof. Harry Rutter, Professor of Global Public Health, University of Bath, UK

Prof. Gabriel Scally, Visiting Professor of Public Health, University of Bristol, Member of Independent SAGE, UK

Prof. Anthony Staines, Professor of Health Systems, Dublin City University, Ireland

Prof. Robert West, Emeritus Professor of Health Psychology, University College London, UK
Dr. Kit Yates, Co-Director of the Centre for Mathematical Biology, University of Bath, and IndieSAGE, UK


Click here to see the organisations that have officially endorsed the John Snow Memorandum.