A Metaculus Open Panel Discussion: How Forecasts Inform COVID-19 Policy
Event Information
About this event
An open panel discussion and Q&A with Virginia Department of Health officials and University of Virginia Biocomplexity Institute researchers, presented by Metaculus
Since March 2020, Metaculus has provided forecasting and modeling resources to public health professionals as they've made crucial decisions in tracking and combating COVID-19. These efforts include the ongoing Keep Virginia Safe and the recently concluded Virginia Lightning Round forecasting tournaments, which were developed in partnership with the Virginia Department of Health and the University of Virginia Biocomplexity Institute, and were designed to enhance COVID-19 modeling efforts while contributing to the ongoing public health policy conversation in Virginia.
But how exactly are these forecasts used to inform COVID-19 policy? In this panel discussion and Q&A, presenters will share how the VDH and UVA Biocomplexity Institute teams first convened and how they currently collaborate, offering a behind-the-scenes look at how tournament questions are formulated—and ultimately, how they support public health policy. During Q&A, the audience will have an opportunity to engage with the public health officials and researchers who make use of forecaster predictions.
In addition to other panel members from the VDH and UVA teams, attendees will hear from
- Justin Crow, VDH Director of the Division of Social Epidemiology and superforecaster
- Bryan Lewis, Computational Epidemiologist and Public-Health Lead at the Network Systems Science and Advanced Computing Division of the Biocomplexity Institute
- Srinivasan Venkatramanan, Research Assistant Professor at the Network Systems Science and Advanced Computing Division of the Biocomplexity Institute
About the Virginia Department of Health:
From VDH's website: "The Virginia Department of Health is dedicated to protecting and promoting the health of Virginians. VDH is made up of a statewide Central Office in Richmond and 35 local health districts. These entities work together to promote healthy lifestyle choices that can combat chronic disease, to educate the public about emergency preparedness and threats to their health, and to track disease outbreaks in Virginia."
About the University of Virginia Biocomplexity Institute:
From the Institute's website: "We've been propelling the science of biocomplexity since we established our first research laboratory at the start of this century. For 20 years, we've explored the frontiers of the unknown to help solve complex societal problems, inform public policy, challenge the fields in which we work and disrupt scientific truths. In 2018, we moved to our new home at the University of Virginia."
About Metaculus:
At Metaculus, our aim is to improve human decision-making and coordination at scale by increasing analytic capacity, reasoning, and judgment. With the unique capabilities of the Metaculus forecasting platform, our innovative programs, and our long-term partnerships, we enable a range of stakeholders and contributors to engage in a process of collective reasoning, forecasting, and ultimately, more informed action. Via this process, we are fostering a worldwide positive-sum collaboration network that develops and aggregates the most accurate forecasts on topics of global importance, a network that spans across nonprofits, government agencies, and institutions, to individual forecasters, researchers, students, and authors.
This online event is scheduled for October 5th, 3:00PM - 4:00PM ET.
NOTE: Attendees will have the opportunity to receive some great UVA Biocomplexity Institute swag!
A Zoom link will be added to the page as the event approaches. For now, register a spot, and we’ll look forward to seeing you there!
Organizer Metaculus
Organizer of A Metaculus Open Panel Discussion: How Forecasts Inform COVID-19 Policy
Your mind is an incredible engine for predicting the future. Every decision you make weighs future outcomes against each other, and you choose which outcome you prefer. But the world is complex, and many predictions — while incredibly important — are hard to make. Science has developed largely to fill this gap, making stunning predictions about systems that can be accurately modeled mathematically or numerically using theoretical constructs, but it still often cannot predict the behavior of complex, and especially social, systems. It is often assumed that such events are simply unpredictable. But they aren’t. Research shows that with some of the right incentives and feedback, groups of people can make remarkably accurate predictions on the probability of future events, rather than merely whether or not they will happen. This capability is apparent in financial and other markets, but can be extended beyond corporation and commodity values to any area of human interest; this is the aim of Metaculus. Metaculus was formed with the goal of improving decision-making by soliciting, improving, and optimally aggregating quantitative predictions of future events.
