COVID-19 pandemic

33 posts

COVID-19, due process and an SNR problem

8 min read
Scicomm adverse events following immunization AstraZeneca COVID-19 pandemic COVID-19 vaccines Covishield European Medicines Agency mRNA vaccines Omelas public health risk communication signal-to-noise ratio T Jacob John Ursula Le Guin

At a press conference streamed live on March 18, the head of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that the body – which serves as the European Union’s drug and vaccine regulator – had conclud…

Anti-softening science for the state

6 min read
Op-eds Scicomm Science Bharatiya Janata Party COVID-19 pandemic free press Gautam Adani government communication report Group of Ministers report independent media Mukesh Ambani neglected tropical diseases Patanjali Ayurved Principal Scientific Adviser research and development S.S. Bhatnagar Award science journalism soft topics tigers vaccine apartheid vaccine nationalism yoga

The group of ministers (GoM) report on "government communication" has recommended that the government promote “soft topics” in the media like “yoga” and “tigers”. We can only speculate what…

A future obscured by exponential growth

6 min read
Science COVID-19 epidemic COVID-19 pandemic exponential growth Factorio Homo sapiens logistics MachinePix predicting the future quality control rotary screen printer supply chain management technology wheat and chessboard problem

A couple months into the COVID-19 pandemic, I think most of us realised how hard it is to comprehend the phenomenon of exponential growth. Mathematically, it's trivial – a geometric progression –…

India's missing research papers

2 min read
Science Bharat Biotech Biocon Covaxin COVID-19 COVID-19 epidemic COVID-19 pandemic ELISA test kit favipiravir hydroxychloroquine Indian Council of Medical Research Itolizumab novel coronavirus peer review preprint papers remdesivir science academies science by press release seroprevalence survey Tata Institute of Fundamental Research tocilizumab Zydus Cadila

If you're looking for a quantification (although you shouldn't) of the extent to which science is being conducted by press releases in India at the moment, consider the following list of studi…