Dear colleagues/students/visitors⌗

We need, more than before, serious and ethical research. We need to take volunteer, collaborative and conscious actions in order to fight against Covid-19. We are much more equipped than we were 100 years ago against the Spanish flu but we have to organize our assets in a smarter way: typing a complicated python code in less than 5 min and plotting an exponential curve are definitely not the skills that we need now.

  • We are definitely not in a period of making benefits to enhance our publication record (by quickly publishing on corona-related topics). There is already an insane number of articles on the subject: Coronavirus and the risks of ‘speed science’. Please avoid science sans conscience.
  • Our current data is mostly dirty, biased and hence essentially not efficient to use. Hopefully we can clean it up thanks to our collaborative power. One can follow Terrence Tao’s blog post for ongoing activities.
  • I think everyone is now able to understand what is an exponential and what does “flatting the curve” mean. The following basic Wikipedia article summarize epidemic models known mostly for decades (and which are still in use): Compartmental models in epidemiology. Here there is an example of a slightly more sophisticated one based on SEIR and you can play with its code. Important: A model is by definition based on several non-trivial assumptions, and hence it will not exactly -even maybe not nearly- tell you what will happen, but probably tell you what you can not hope.
  • We can track the propagation of the virus (and this is what we need to do) without violating human rights and privacy. A solution is suggested by Yoshua Bengio (Turing Award 2019): Peer-to-peer AI-tracing of COVID-19.
  • For colleagues bothered with the question of grading their students via e-learning: perhaps you don’t need to. Here you can find an excellent text by Alfie Kohn explaining why: Grading. The Issue Is Not How but Why.
  • Last but not least: While the natural sciences is currently central to deal with the crisis, we absolutely need the help of social sciences: philosophers, sociologists and many more, in order -at least- to have a sustainable life after the pandemic. Here I would like to share an article by famous Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben which has been severely criticized recently. I also disagree with his point of view if one takes his critics as suggestions on how (not/) to react to the current situation. Yet, taking it within a broader perspective, he rises the question that -I think- we always have to keep in mind: “(…)what is a society that has no value other than survival?” Note that this question perfectly makes sens independently of the current pandemic, since, for instance, one remembers that 25% of the world population has no access to adequate sanitation and this was exactly the same already three months ago.