RSS East Midlands Local Group: COVID-19 and Data Science with Prof. Sylvia Richardson

Date: Monday 24 May 2021, 3.30PM
Location: Online
Online - joining instructions will be emailed to those registered prior to the event
Local Group Meeting


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Join us for a virtual seminar to discuss statistics and data science in action: tackling COVID-19 with Professor Sylvia Richardson! 
We have left plenty of time for audience questions at the end of the talk so please do come along ready to join the discussion. 
The talk will be of broad interest and accessible to all, all are welcome!
 
Join us for a virtual seminar to discuss statistics and data science in action: tackling COVID-19 with Professor Sylvia Richardson! 
We have left plenty of time for audience questions at the end of the talk so please do come along ready to join the discussion. 
 
Speakers:
Prof Sylvia Richardson, Director of MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, & President of the Royal Statistical Society.
In this talk, my aim is first to look back at 2020 and 2021 and review the multi-facet engagement of statisticians and the RSS in the Covid-19 crisis. I will highlight different aspects of the work of the RSS Covid-19 Task Force and briefly describe the RSS-Turing engagement with the Joint Biosecurity Centre. 
 In a second part, I will focus on the statistical issues related to the evaluation and deployment of rapid diagnostic tests. One key area where rapid tests have been deployed is schools, and I will describe how this has motived some recent simulation work to understand the relative merits of different policies of deployment of rapid testing in schools. 
In my final remarks, I will move away from Covid-19 and look towards the future landscape for statistics in the fast-moving world of data science. I will give a brief update on an initiative, launched in January, which aims to develop at pace a strategy of visible engagement of the RSS with the ecosystem of Data Science, building on the strong growth in this area and the central position of statistics.
 
Prof Sylvia Richardson, Royal Statistical Society president
 
Lucy Teece for the RSS East Midlands Local Group