Resources: Make an ugly working version

Exercises: Make an ugly working version

Resources: Detecting and Containing Early Infections

Exercises: Detecting and Containing Early Infections

Resources: Clarify your goal and plan your project

Exercises: Clarify your goal and plan your project

Resources: Pandemic Risk Over the Coming Decades

Exercises: Pandemic Risk Over the Coming Decades

Resources: Make something awesome

Exercises: Make something awesome

Resources: Preventing Patient Zero

Exercises: Preventing Patient Zero

Resources: First sketch of your idea

Exercises: First sketch of your idea

Resources: Governmental Response to a Global Pandemic

Exercises: Governmental Response to a Global Pandemic

Resources: Contributing to Biosecurity

Exercises: Contributing to Biosecurity

Resources: Technologies to Strengthen Future Pandemic Response

Exercises: Technologies to Strengthen Future Pandemic Response

Resources: Building a Pandemic-Proof World

Exercises: Building a Pandemic-Proof World

Resources: Tabletop Exercise

Exercises: Tabletop Exercise

So we’ve failed to prevent patient zero, contain early infections, and the disease is spreading across the globe…what next?

Eradication of the disease is infeasible in the short term and focus must shift to damage-limitation. This unit explores actions governments can take to minimise the population-level harms of a pandemic. 

For this unit we will assume that the pandemic is happening now, and we only have today's technology at our disposal. Next unit explores emerging technologies with the potential to strengthen pandemic response in the future.

As we have seen with COVID, pandemics cause a range of large-scale harms. Deaths are the most obvious and tragic, but we must also consider other factors such as damage to economies, education and long-term mental and physical health effects.

By the end of the unit, you should be able to:
\- Identify and explain the range of interventions available to governments to respond to pandemics given the current state of technology.
\- Highlight the trade-offs governments face when trying to minimise the range of large-scale harms of a pandemic.
\- Highlight governments which performed well at specific elements of pandemic response during COVID, and explain what made them successful.


**Pick one of the five options below**, and conduct your own research into **one government’s strategy** with this set of interventions during COVID. You can either pick your own country, or one from [this list](https://docs.google.com/document/d/13TN70WQp3uRiY_ZIZvmcOHFNdMmX9b-Uj4NUv3GS_bs/edit?usp=sharing).

Message your cohort Slack channel to let them know which option and which country you will be covering.

When conducting your research, consider using [the strategy framework](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KGOUeSoo0LZcuE6evZJB_nkNTLJDV25jFp_Sh9aSt_M/edit?usp=sharing) from the core readings:
1. **What was the critical challenge the government was facing?**
    1. _It may be difficult to find direct evidence for what the government saw as the critical challenge, so we encourage you to assess this question using your own knowledge of the country's situation._
2. **What was their guiding policy for addressing this challenge?**
    1. _It may be difficult to find direct evidence for the guiding policy, but you can attempt to infer this from their actions._
3. **What set of actions did they take to execute this guiding policy?**
4. **How could their strategy have been better? Consider how other countries approached the same critical challenge.**

**(Option 1) Containment and Closure**
_Including:_
- _Restrictions on gathering size_
- _School and workplace closure_
- _Stay at home requirements_
- _Restrictions on international travel_

**(Option 2) Healthcare Response**
_Including:_
- _Expanding critical care capacity_
- _Expanding testing capacity_
- _Incentivising R&D on therapeutics_
- _Releasing equipment from stockpiles_

**(Option 3) Economic Response**
_Including:_
- _Income support for individuals_
- _Financial support for businesses_
- _Giving international financial aid_

**(Option 4) Public Communications**
_Including:_
- _Centralisation of communications_
- _Educating the public_
- _Communication of uncertainty_
- _Tackling misinformation_

**(Option 5) Vaccine Policies **
_Including:_
- _Investment in vaccine R&D_
- _Upscaling vaccine manufacturing_
- _Vaccine procurement_
- _Vaccine distribution_



[Exercise 1 of 2] - Government COVID response strategies

This [COVID Simulator](https://covidgame.info/) allows you to act as the government in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Czechia, taking actions such as:
- Enforcing use of masks and social distancing
- Closing borders
- Limiting the size of public events
- Restricting available services
- Closing schools
- Offering financial compensation

Try to balance these interventions to minimise the number of deaths and cost to the economy, while also keeping track of your social stability and hospital capacity.

Have a few goes, trying different strategies and starting at different time-points (1st Mar 2020 or 2nd Feb 2021).

**Share your best outcomes\* and strategies in the Slack** and write down any takeaways in the box below.

\*If you're interested, the game's designer discusses the overall distribution of game outcomes in [this resource](https://boundedlyrational.substack.com/p/on-the-dilemma-between-lives-and) from the further readings.



[Exercise 2 of 2] - Simulate the COVID-19 Response in Czechia

Recalling and reflecting on previous learnings is an excellent way to deepen your understanding and help retain them in your memory.

**Pick one of last session’s deep-dives which you didn’t read about, but which one of your cohort presented about in the discussion session.** From memory, spend roughly 10 minutes trying to write up your understanding of the intervention using the following prompts:

- Explain the technology and its relevance to outbreak detection
- What role might this technology play in early outbreak detection and prevention, and what role might it play in post-outbreak biosurveillance and response? At which stages of a pandemic would the technology be more or less valuable, and why?
- Which currently-existing, widespread technologies aim to fulfil a similar role to the technology you studied? In what ways is the technology you studied an upgrade over the existing technology, and to what extent do you think this would make a difference in the event of an outbreak?
- Consider how useful this technology would be (compared to existing alternatives), for diseases with different incubation periods. For example:
    - Pathogens like SARS-CoV-2 that display symptoms with a short incubation period (symptoms show ~1-10 days after infection)
    - Pathogens with long incubation periods and latent states (e.g. HIV and Tuberculosis)
- In which contexts might this technology be rendered ineffective?
- How well does this intervention score against the factors you established in week 3 discussion (e.g. cost-effectiveness, technology readiness level etc.)?

As a reminder, the interventions covered were:

1. Clinical metagenomic sequencing
2. Environmental metagenomic sequencing
3. LAMP
4. CRISPR diagnostics
5. Digital detection



Pandemics

Exercises: Governmental Response to a Global Pandemic

Exercises