Policy Punchline

Professor Jessica Metcalf of Princeton explains how to best understand the novel Coronavirus and emerging diseases in general, why it might take a long while to find and produce a vaccine, why the WHO would declare a State of Emergency around the Coronavirus, how researchers can measure its severity and spread, and what properties of COVID-19 compel her to think it might go global. Jessica Metcalf is Assistant Professor of Ecology, Evolutionary Biology & Public Affairs at Princeton University, and a demographer with broad interests in evolutionary ecology, infectious disease dynamics and public policy. Some of her motivating research questions of particular interest include: How will changing human demography impact infectious disease incidence and spread? What drives dynamics of rubella through space and time, and what does this indicate for vaccine control? What are the key influences on dynamics of malaria inside the bloodstream of mice, and what does this imply for control as well as evolution of the