Welcome to the 430th episode of COVID-Calls, a daily discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic with a diverse collection of disaster experts. My name is Jacob Steere-Williams, I am a historian of public health at the College of Charleston, in South Carolina, and I’m thrilled to be hosting the program this week.
Dr. Freya Jephcott is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. She is a trained both as a medical anthropologist and an epidemiologist. Dr. Jephcott’s research focuses on the effectiveness of outbreak response systems in resource-limited settings, the management of outbreaks of uncertain etiology, and in particular zoonoses. Freya has also participated in applied policy work on health emergencies for Medicine Sans Frontieres and the World Health Organization.
David Steadson is a Consultant Public Health Epidemiologist and Entreprenuer who, after spending a decade in Public Health research and being trained as an epidemiologist, moved into the field of IT and Digital Health startups. His work in epidemiology has focused on mitigation strategies of drunk driving, and recently, he has written extensively about COVID-19, particularly in Scandinavian countries. He is the founder of VanaTech, a digital health company that helps to promote behavioral change in health using the latest research in epidemiology, psychology, and health economics.