COVID-19: Analysis, resources and how you can help [visible to anyone with the link]
80,000 Hours provides research and advice to help people find careers that help solve the world’s most pressing problems.
This page presents all our content related to the COVID-19 crisis, and other resources we’ve found helpful. It covers how to understand the crisis, how to tackle it, ideas for dealing with self-isolation, and how you could use your career to help prevent future pandemics.
We’re updating this page regularly. Please contact us to suggest improvements, opportunities to help, or if you notice mistakes.
Last update: 2020-03-28 XX:XX GMT
Table of Contents
- 1 Understanding COVID-19
- 2 Coping with COVID-19
- 3 Help tackle COVID-19
- 4 A long list of opportunities
- 5 Help prevent the next pandemic
- 6 Social media updates
- 7 Further reading on COVID-19
- 7.1 Academic resources
- 7.2 Approaches of specific countries
- 7.3 Dashboards, models, figures and data analysis
- 7.4 Projects being undertaken by individuals and groups
- 7.5 Highly simplified explanations for rapid understanding
- 7.6 Pharmaceutical and medical interventions
- 7.7 Figures
- 7.8 Other news stories lifted from Hacker News that may be useful
- 7.9 Wikipedia on country outbreaks
- 7.10 Government resources
- 8 Get notified when we update this page
Understanding COVID-19
Here are some of the best primers we’ve found:
- A popular video introduction
- A popular written introduction
- A popular summary of key facts and an FAQ with practical advice
- An overview targeted at clinicians
- An influential academic paper from Imperial College, which includes a discussion of policy options
If you’d like more detail, listen to our March 19th podcast discussion, or read the transcript. There’s also a longer reading list below.
Coping with COVID-19
These are difficult times. If you’re social distancing or working from home for the first time, this article on self-care may be helpful.
If you’re feeling OK, but at a loose end while distancing, consider how you could help address the crisis (see below). You could also frame this time as an opportunity to work on personal development, planning your next career move or any of these meaningful things one can do while stuck at home.
Help tackle COVID-19
As a society, how can we tackle it?
Practically everyone agrees that we need to:
- Do research to understand the disease and to develop new treatments and a vaccine.
- Determine the right policies, both for public health and the economic response.
- Increase healthcare capacity, especially for testing, ventilators, personal protective equipment, and critical care.
- Slow the spread through testing & isolating cases, as well as mass advocacy to promote social distancing and other key behaviours, buying us more time to do the above.
- We also need to keep society functioning through the progression of the pandemic.
There has been a debate about whether to focus on ‘suppression’ or ‘mitigation’. Suppression involves strict social distancing, aiming to reduce the number of cases, and keep them low until we have better treatment options. Mitigation aims to slow the spread and protect especially vulnerable groups, but employs less social distancing than suppression, with the advantage that we’d likely return to normal life more quickly.
Each option involves terrible costs, but if we can effectively employ the right strategy, we can reduce these costs as much as possible, and potentially save tens of millions of lives.
Currently, most countries seem to have decided on the suppression strategy. Here’s a short explanation of how we might use suppression to defeat COVID-19, and the arguments for and against, written by our Director of Research, Rob Wiblin.
Ways of contributing
Many people will find their best opportunities to help in their local community – supporting health workers, driving delivery vans, helping friends and family, looking after neighbours, and so on – or in donating money. If you already play a role in providing essential services it’s likely that working hard at your day job, while making efforts to avoid spreading the virus, is one of the most valuable things you can do.
It’s also important to remember that the rest of the world’s problems have not gone away. If you’re already on a career path that you think is high-impact, then unless you have rare skills that are urgently needed, your best bet is probably to practice social distancing and good hygiene, but otherwise continue with your existing path.
That said, there are opportunities to help that some of our readers may be exceptionally well-placed to pursue. We’ve prepared two articles to help those who are thinking about how they can help:
A long list of opportunities
Below is a list of opportunities to help the global response to COVID-19. The list is focussed on opportunities in research, policy, technology and startups. We focus on opportunities in the US and UK, because most of our audience is based there. Please tell us about opportunities in other locations that we should add to this list.
Warning: we have not carefully reviewed the organisations and opportunities on these lists. Most items on this list are included simply on the grounds that we have seen the project mentioned by an individual or institution we trust, or even just that we (as non-experts) have glanced at the relevant project and thought it seemed at least somewhat promising. Please contact us to suggest improvements to this list.
Groups that are hiring or seeking volunteers
Update 2020-05: We’re now listing COVID-19 opportunities on our job board.
We previously published a list of groups that are hiring or seeking volunteers. It may still be useful, but we are no longer updating it.
Funding opportunities
This list was last updated on 2020-04-10. We are no longer updating this list, though you may still find it useful.
Other good lists
Here are some lists that other groups have made:
- Y Combinator companies responding to COVID-19
- List of funding opportunities for researchers, non-profits and commercial organisations
- Help With COVID: List of volunteer opportunities
- COVID-19 research ideas for the effective altruism community
- CoronavirusTechHandbook.com
- Ovio.org: open source software, hardware & data science projects
- COVID-19 Response Projects
- Covid Base
- Companies offering special discounts related to COVID-19
- There are more links in our list of recommended resources that may help you find your best role.
Help prevent the next pandemic
If you’d like to help prevent the next disaster like this, consider a career in biosecurity and pandemic preparedness (or suggest it to someone you know).
To learn more, see our problem profile on global catastrophic biological risks.
Biorisk strategy and policy is among the “priority paths” we encourage people to consider as a high impact career. Below is our primer on the path:
We’ve argued that pandemics can pose global catastrophic risks, in particular as advances in bioengineering make it possible to create engineered pandemics that are even more deadly than naturally occurring ones.
There is already a significant community working on pandemic prevention, and there are many ways to contribute to this field. However, most of the existing work is focused on naturally-caused pandemics like those we’ve seen in the past and COVID-19 (though this is starting to change a bit). While these are very important to mitigate, we think it’s even more important to prevent pandemics that pose catastrophic risks, especially those that might totally end human civilisation. There is substantial overlap between work that mitigates these known pandemic risks and more extreme risks, so work in the one is also helpful for work in the other; still, work that is particularly focused on the extreme risks seems somewhat neglected in the field right now.
For reasons our profile explains, catastrophic pandemics seem more likely to be human-caused, and perhaps even deliberately caused. So they may be more well-targeted by security and biodefence interventions than conventional public health ones. Moreover, much past funding for work on bioterrorism seems to have focused on more well-known risks such as anthrax, which doesn’t pose a catastrophic risk.
This means that despite significant existing work on pandemic prevention, global catastrophic biological risks seem neglected.
We rate biorisk as a less pressing issue than AI safety, mainly because we think biorisks are less likely to be truly existential, and AI seems more likely to play a key role in shaping the long-term future in other ways. However, working to prevent catastrophic pandemics seems very high value to us, and can easily be your top option if you have a comparative advantage in this path (e.g., a background in medicine).
We can roughly divide this path into working in government and related organizations on the one hand, and working in research on the other.
The main line of defence against these risks is government, so it’s valuable to build up a community of experts in relevant areas of national government and intergovernmental organisations. These include:
- The US Centers for Disease Control
- The World Health Organization
- The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
- The FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate
- Other US departments, like the ones listed here
You could also work in relevant think tanks, such as the Center for Health Security or nonprofits like the Nuclear Threat Initiative. These experts help develop and implement policies. Again, see our problem profile for global catastrophic risks for more.
Another option is to work in academia. This involves developing a relevant area of expertise, such as synthetic biology, genetics, public health, epidemiology, international relations, security studies, or political science. Note that it’s possible—and at times beneficial—to start by studying a quantitative subject (sometimes even to graduate level), and then switch into biology later. Quantitative skills are in demand in biology and give you better back-up options.
Once you’ve completed training, you could do a number of things—including but not limited to: research on directly useful technical questions (such as how to create broad-spectrum diagnostics or rapidly deploy vaccines), research on strategic questions (such as how dangerous technologies should be controlled), or advising for policy-makers and other groups on the relevant issues. One top research centre you could aim to work at is the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford.
As with AI strategy, the study of global catastrophic biological risk is still a nascent field. This again can make it hard to contribute, since—although progress is being made—we don’t yet know which research questions are most important, and there is often a shortage of mentorship.
This means that there’s an especially pressing need for more “field building” or “disentanglement” research, with the aim of defining the field. If you might be able to do this kind of work, then your contribution is especially valuable since you can unlock the efforts of other researchers. The main home for most of this kind of research with a long-term focus right now is the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford.
If you’re not able to contribute to disentanglement research right now, there are several other things you can do, including: (i) tackle more straightforward relevant research questions, (ii) work in more mainstream biorisk organisations to build up expertise, (iii) focus on policy positions with the aim of building a community and expertise, or (iv) become an expert on a relevant area of biology, international relations, or a related field.
One advantage of working on biorisk is that many of the top positions seem somewhat less competitive than in AI technical safety work, because they don’t require world-class quantitative skills.
Besides pandemic risks, we’re also interested in how to safely manage the introduction of other potentially transformative discoveries in biology which could be used to fundamentally alter human characteristics and values (such as genetic engineering) and anti-ageing research. We see these issues as somewhat less pressing than the possibility of engineered pandemics, but they provide another reason to develop expertise in these areas.
Often the way to enter this path is to pursue relevant graduate studies (such as in the subjects listed above) because this takes you along the academic path, and is also helpful in the policy path, where many positions require graduate study. Alternatively, you can try to directly enter relevant jobs in government, international organisations, or nonprofits, and build expertise on the job.
The backup options for this path depend on what expertise you have, but they include other options in the policy realm—it’s usually possible to switch your focus within a policy career. You could also work on adjacent research questions that also have the potential to make a positive difference, such as in global health, ageing, or genetics. These backup options seem generally attractive, though somewhat less promising and more competitive than the ones made available by pursuing AI safety policy or technical research (which is one reason we rank this path a bit lower).
Could this be a good fit for you?
- Are you deeply concerned with reducing catastrophic risks, and especially extinction risks?
- Do you have reasonably strong quantitative skills? (They don’t need to be as strong as they do for AI fields.)
- Do you already have experience in a relevant research area relevant to biology (such as those listed above)?
- Might you be capable of getting a PhD from a top 30 school in one of these areas? This isn’t required but is a good indicator. Read more about predicting success in research.
- If focused on field-building research, can you take on messy, ill-defined questions, and come up with reasonable assessments about them?
- Are you able to be discreet about sensitive information concerning biodefence?
- If focused on policy, might you be capable of getting and being satisfied in a relevant position in government? In policy, it’s useful to have relatively stronger social skills, such as being happy to speak to people all day, and being able to maintain a robust professional network. Policy careers also require patience in working with large bureaucracies, and sometimes also involve facing public scrutiny.
Key reading
- Our problem profile on global catastrophical biological risks, which includes a list of recommended organisations and research centres
- Collection of all our content on preventing catastrophic pandemics
Other reading
- Biomedical research career review (though note this is focused on general biomedical research rather than biorisks, and is out of date)
- Civil service career review
- Think tank research career review
Podcast interviews
We’ve interviewed several people who are working on biorisk. Each episode page includes a transcript and links to further reading.
Opportunities to work on biorisk
A short list of organisations working on biorisks can be found here. It is a bit out of date, we will update it in the next week or two.
Our job board lists some roles related to biorisk, and will have more in the coming weeks.
Further reading on COVID-19
Academic resources
- The famous Imperial College London study comparing mitigation and suppression: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand by Ferguson et al. (16 March)
- Critical review of that paper “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions…” by Shen et al. (March 17)
- Reasons why suppression may struggle to work: Analysis of 25,000 Lab-Confirmed COVID-19 Cases in Wuhan: Epidemiological Characteristics and Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention Effects, by Xihong Lin. And Rob lists scenarios under which the UK might need to switch away from its current plan.
- Argument that suppression or containment might be too costly to be worth pursuing: Has the coronavirus panic cost us at least 10 million lives already? by Paul Frijters
- Lessons from containment efforts in Singapore by Lee et al. (13 March)
- Possible Fiscal Policies for Rare, Unanticipated, and Severe Viral Outbreaks from Bill Dupor at the St Louis Fed (March 17) and a breezier set of economic policy suggestions from Greg Mankiw (March 13)
- Response to COVID-19 in Taiwan Big Data Analytics, New Technology, and Proactive Testing by Wang et al. (March 3)
- Adjusted age-specific case fatality ratio during the COVID-19 epidemic in Hubei, China, January and February 2020 by Riou et al. (March 6)
- Clinical data on 1,099 patients hospitalized in China before January 29, 2020: Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China by Guan et. al. (Feb 28)
- Basic descriptive analysis of 72,000 patient records reported in China through Feb 11, 2020: Vital Surveillances: The Epidemiological Characteristics of an Outbreak in China CDC Weekly
- A Single Ventilator for Multiple Simulated Patients to Meet Disaster Surge by Neyman and Irvan (2006)
Approaches of specific countries
- Why Singapore’s coronavirus response worked – and what we can all learn by Dale Fisher on The Conversation (March 18)
- Which Country Has Flattened the Curve for the Coronavirus? in the New York Times (March 19)
- Without serious action, Australia will run out of intensive care beds between 7 and 9 April by Megan Higgie and Andrew Kahn (March 18)
- How crowded Asian cities tackled an epidemic by Hannah Beech for the New York Times (March 17)
- Korea’s Drive-Through Testing Is Fast — And Free by Anthony Kuhn for NPR (March 13)
- The FDA/CDC coronavirus response is one of the most shocking government failures I have seen in my lifetime by Alex Tabarrok (March 9)
- Website tracking each country’s COVID-19 policy response
Dashboards, models, figures and data analysis
- The best coronavirus dashboard: live updates, cases, death toll, graphs, maps, and compare countries
- Coronavirus Statistics and Research from Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina at Our World In Data
- How many tests are being performed around the world? from Esteban Ortiz-Ospina at Our World in Data
- Epidemic calculator for rough scenario modelling
- Modelling for policymakers: Why you must act now
- Data mapping from JHU GSSE. You can do your own analysis using the source CSVs.
- Great website offering coronavirus projections and comparing cases and deaths to ICU bed numbers made by Chris Billington
- Stay abreast of new developments by reading coronavirus articles at the Financial Times
- A page listing even more COVID-19 dashboards
Projects being undertaken by individuals and groups
- Help with COVID — A compilation of COVID-19 projects looking for volunteers
- Project Open Air — A group working on medical devices, to have a fast and easy solution that can be reproduced and assembled locally worldwide
- Pledge to #StandAgainstCorona – Four important steps can help slow the spread of COVID-19.
- Coronavirus Tech Handbook compiled by Nathan Young
- Crowd Fight COVID-19 appeal for volunteers
- Promoting simple do-it-yourself masks: an urgent intervention for COVID-19 mitigation, by Matthias Samwald and co-authors
- Looking at South Korea’s amazing progress through Rob’s scrappy projection models
- Coronavirus: Tens of thousands of retired medics asked to return to NHS, covered in the BBC
- GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization by Jordan Fabian and David Welch in Bloomberg
- COVID-19 Open Research Dataset from Semantic Scholar
- Offering Funding for COVID-19 Projects by Sam Altman
- COVID-19 Testing Charts by Spencer Chen
- Prepare Now for the Long War Against Covid-19: Fighting the surprise attack should not distract us from the lasting battle by Richard Danzig & Marc Lipsitch in Bloomberg (March 20)
- A hospital begins UV sterilizing masks for reuse
Highly simplified explanations for rapid understanding
- How to explain the unexpectedly large impact of physical distancing, especially to your less mathy friends and family
- The UK Government’s current strategy to combating COVID-19 in very brief form, and the case in its favour: one, two, three, four
- Viral video that shows you how germs spread
Pharmaceutical and medical interventions
- Handbook of Covid-19 Prevention and Treatment from Hospital with 0% fatality from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine
- Translation of the Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia from the Chinese Health Commission (March 3)
- A systematic review on the efficacy and safety of chloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19 by Cortegiani et al. (March 10)
- Hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine, is effective in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro by Liu et al. (March 18)
- Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro by Wang et al. (February 4)
Figures
One: Estimates of fatality and hospitalisation rates by age
Two: Do you have COVID, or is it more likely something else?
Note: In the time since this graphic was created, we’ve heard preliminary reports that diarrhea and other gastrointestinal issues may be the primary early symptoms for a moderate number of patients.
Three: A simple visualisation of exponential growth
Other news stories lifted from Hacker News that may be useful
- Ten-Minute Coronavirus Test for $1 Could Be Game Changer by Alonso Soto (March 16)
- Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial starts Monday by Zeke Miller (March 15)
- Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients lives by 3D printing valves for reanimation devices by Davide Sher (March 14)
- Up to 50% – 75% of cases of Covid-19 could be asymptomatic (March 16)
- COVID-19 Has Caused A Shortage Of Face Masks. But They’re Surprisingly Hard To Make by Emily Feng and Amy Cheng (March 16)
- Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains? by Willy Shih in the MIT Sloan Management Review (March 19)
- Alphabet, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing (March 16)
- FDA grants Roche coronavirus test emergency green light within 24 hours by Conor Hale (March 13)
- Nvidia calling gaming PC owners to put their systems to work fighting Covid-19 by Connor Sheridan (March 13)
- Face Mask Use and Control of Respiratory Virus Transmission in Households from CDC
Wikipedia on country outbreaks
- The 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in: New Zealand, South Korea, Australia, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, the United States, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Iran.
Government resources
- Relevant publications from the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)
- UK guidance for households with possible coronavirus infections
- Hygiene promotion poster from Singapore: Let’s all do our part
See also this list of resources from the folks at LessWrong.
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