CSE 599S, Special Topics: Computing and Global Health - Computing and Covid-19



Class Meetings:

Class sessions: Monday and Wednesday, 3:00-4:20 PM, Lowe 101

Contact Information:

Instructor:
Richard Anderson (anderson@cs)

About this course:

Description: This course will examine the role of computing in supporting worldwide efforts to address the covid-19 pandemic including the challenge of making vaccines available globally. Topics will include global goods software, immunization logistics, campaign planning and epidemiological modeling. The course will be have regular readings and will be discussion based. Students are expected to co-lead the discussions and write discussion summaries. I hope that the class will produce a whitepaper on "Computing and Covid". Students will do a project exploring a topic of interest and well also help in investigating some of the topics.

Topics:

  • Health data reporting How do we know how many cases there are of covid? How is health data reported in developing countries? What are the major health information systems in use?
  • Epidemiological modeling What is the role of mathematical modeling in predicting the rate of cases and the impact of different interventions. How can SIR (Susceptible, Infected, Recovered) models be applied to covid?
  • Immunization logistics Billions of doses of covid vaccine are needed to ensure that the global population is vaccinated. How is the vaccine distributed from the global producers to country immunization programs? What are the challenges in keeping vaccines at appropriate temperature (especially since some vaccines need to be stored at very low temperatures?). How do information systems tie into vaccine logistics?
  • Immunization planning Immunization planning consists of allocating vaccines and ensuring support is avaiable for campaign administration. Are there computational tools that can support this process? What are the different technology areas that are relevant? How do these apply to developing countries?
  • Vaccine passports How is vaccine status verified. Many countries are deploying vaccine verification systems, what are the technologies being used?
  • Contact tracing How can mobile technologies be used to track cases or potential contacts. What are the technologies that have been deployed in different countries. What are the barriers to adoption?

See the Topics page for more information on these.