Abstract:
The spread of epidemics is structured by delay distributions, including the now-famous “serial interval” between the symptom-onset times of an infector and an infectee (often conflated with the “generation interval” between infection times). Clearly defining these time distributions, and describing how they relate to each other, and to key parameters of disease spread, poses interesting theoretical and practical questions, some of which are still open.

I will discuss how transmission intervals link the “speed” and “strength” of epidemics, issues in their estimation, and their role in helping monitor changes in the parameters underlying the spread of COVID-19 disease.

Bio:
Jonathan Dushoff is a theoretical biologist with a broad interest in computational and statistical approaches to practical biological questions with a particular interest in dynamical questions (how systems are shaped at large scales by the way that they change at small scales). His current research is mostly focused on infectious diseases of humans, particularly HIV, canine rabies and (recently) COVID-19.

He has a B.A in Mathematics from Penn; served in the United States Peace Corps for two years in Swaziland (now Eswatini); worked as a Nader's Raider in the late 1980s; studied Ecology at Cornell and Princeton with Simon Levin; worked as both an environmental activist and a math-bio researcher in Taiwan; and was a Research Biologist and Lecturer at Princeton.

He was based in Corson Hall at Cornell from 1989-1991 but didn't really figure out how the sundial adjustments worked until many years later.

Zoom Link Acess:
This talk will be given via Zoom, and the link is emailed to the CAM Seminar listserv the week of the talk. If you are not on the listserv, please contact Erika Fowler-Decatur to request the link.