SitP - Online: Liam Brierley - Origins of the novel coronavirus.

As we can't currently gather in a pub for fear of creating an accidental corona virus party, we've decided to move our monthly event online for this month.

Fortunately, one of our planned speakers for this month's March Megamix has agreed to step in and give an extended version of his talk on COVID-19.

Origins of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) – is the infodemic systemic?

Is it a bat? Is it a snake? It is a pangolin?? More importantly, how do we know?

The novel coronavirus, now established as SARS-CoV-2, is an ongoing global health emergency with outbreak size estimated at over 70,000 cases of COVID-19 disease (at time of writing). Investigations into this virus’ origin have taken place upon an unprecedented public stage of early-access and pre-published research platforms, as well as academic Twitter. While rapid global knowledge sharing has been one result, the spread of questionable claims based on flawed science has been another, thanks to the closed gap between academia and public. I’ll show what we know about where newly emerging viruses come from, before dissecting some of the unsubstantiated claims made about SARS-CoV-2 in preprint research and their influence on the media. I’ll also discuss how we might reduce the impacts of the double-edge sword of preprint availability during future epidemics.

Liam Brierley is an epidemiologist and research fellow at the University of Liverpool as well as a media ambassador for the Royal Statistical Society. His research interests revolve around using data to understand why viruses jump between host species and to predict future outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Join us tomorrow night from 7pm by clicking this link: https://www.twitch.tv/SitP/

Future events are still on hold, but rest assured we have plans underway to keep Skeptics in the Pub going during the lockdown