Events & Calendars Uncertainty and the Response to COVID-19, Statistics and Data Colloquia, Dr. Kline

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all of our lives and reporting on epidemiological data has become almost a routine, daily occurrence. Since early in the pandemic, I have been on the OSU Comprehensive Monitoring Team that has been advising the Ohio Department of Health. One important theme throughout this work has been operating under uncertainty. As with any novel disease, there was and still is uncertainty about the disease itself. However, there is also uncertainty about the data that we can collect to try to understand rates of infection across space and time and to identify emerging areas of concern. It is critical to consider this uncertainty within the decision-making process. During this talk, I will discuss several areas where I have contributed to the response to COVID-19 including a seroprevalence study, surveillance, and an excess deaths analysis. I will particularly focus on the importance of thinking beyond the data that are observed to consider the context and the quality of what are observed. Through these examples, I will highlight important contributions of statistical and epidemiological methods and thinking.