People queue inside a Sainsbury's supermarket in Watford as the spread of the coronavirus disease continues, Watford, Britain, March 19, 2020. (Photo: Agencies)

Thousands sign up to gain insights into outbreak and its consequences

Academics in the United Kingdom have launched a free eight-week online course to teach learners around the world about COVID-19 and ongoing efforts to combat the global pandemic.

Imperial College London launched Science Matters: Let's Talk about COVID-19, on Monday, on the online teaching platform Coursera.

"What we're hoping to do with this course is to equip you with the tools to understand the scientific principles underpinning the response to the pandemic," said Helen Ward, who is a professor of public health at Imperial.

The course includes analysis on a series of reports produced by the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling at Imperial. One study in this series, which looked at projections for death and infection rates in the UK, is credited with encouraging British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to move more aggressively on lockdown measures.

So far, the course has attracted more than 1.2 million page views and 68,000 people have enrolled.

The first class includes introductory video interviews with Ward and Katharina Hauck, who is deputy director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, or J-IDEA, at Imperial.

"In this worrying time, now more than ever, science matters," Hauck said. "People everywhere are scared. They think that we only have medieval interventions of social distancing to curb the spread of the pandemic. But that is not true, because we know that the spread of the virus follows certain rules-the rules of mathematics and statistics. And we also know that the behavior of individuals is not static. People do adjust to the threat that is posed by the pandemic. Because we understand these two factors, the spread of the virus is not inevitable."

In the course, experts provide detail on a variety of key topics including: the basic reproduction number of infection; the case fatality rate; community participation and the role of social media during pandemics; the economics of an outbreak; and emergency preparedness and the role of health systems.

"This is an unexpected moment of acceleration in the history of online learning globally," said Gideon Shimshon, director of Imperial's Digital Learning Hub. "We now have the ability to reach learners all across the globe. Thanks to the investment in digital learning capabilities over the past few years we are able to bring our teaching and research expertize together to work hand-in-hand and help policymakers and the general population make effective public health decisions at scale."

The course includes interviews with J-IDEA Director Neil Ferguson, who authored the report that accelerated the UK's pandemic response, as well as content from other researchers working on vaccine candidates, virus testing, and the treatment of symptoms.