We've designed a safe 'virtual' epidemic. Spreading it is going to help us learn about COVID
By Yoni Nazarathy, Associate Professor of Data Science, The University of Queensland Shutterstock One of the biggest challenges in managing the coronavirus pandemic has been a lack of real-time information about the virus’s spread. While the goal of well-intentioned governments is clear — to mitigate spread with minimal economic and social impact — it is very difficult to decide on the best policy to achieve this. In Australia, public health authorities have been consistent in encouraging testing for the virus. The major driver behind this has been the desire to find posi...