Gavin Freeguard

Nov 18, 2024 | gavin-freeguard.medium.com | Gavin Freeguard

Gavin Freeguard·Follow2 min read·--It’s the world’s first, the world’s best… almost certainly the world’s only data gameshow. (There’s probably a reason for that.)Going for Gold: me wearing my (in)famous sparkly gold jacket (and black shirt, pointing at the camera — background is blue with filled yellow/orange/gold circles).

Oct 1, 2024 | academic.oup.com | Gavin Freeguard

The Times “waved goodbye” to R on 8 March 2021. “You won’t be missed”, wrote science editor, Tom Whipple. He quoted John Edmunds of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine: “The era of R is coming to an end … come the autumn, with luck, all adults will be vaccinated and Covid’s ferocity will have been blunted. And then R can at last return to where it is happiest: mathematical obscurity.”Even the advent of the Omicron variant in late 2021 failed to drive renewed interest in R.

Jun 3, 2024 | academic.oup.com | Gavin Freeguard

Chicago. We hear her cough. We see the sweat on her forehead. Our gaze lingers on the surfaces she touches – a bowl of nuts on the bar, her credit card. Hong Kong. A coughing man clings to handrails on boat and train, our gaze on the button he presses to summon a lift. London. An unwell model leaves a shoot, our gaze on the folder she leaves behind. Within a few minutes of Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film, Contagion, it is clear that the fictional disease, MEV-1, has gone global.

May 16, 2024 | gavin-freeguard.medium.com | Gavin Freeguard

The government has yet to establish a promised inter-ministerial group on AI - but does have them on levelling up, investment and space. That's according to a recent Freedom of Information request I submitted to Cabinet Office. In its response to the AI White Paper, published in February, the government said that in addition to establishing 'lead AI Ministers across all departments...

Apr 7, 2024 | academic.oup.com | Gavin Freeguard

Since R cannot be measured directly, it can only be modelled. The guide to epidemiological modelling produced by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) defines a model as “a simplified representation of reality”. Epidemiological models aim to understand how a disease might spread, how it might affect the population and the public services designed to treat them, and, in some cases, the projected impact of different interventions (such as lockdowns).