How actuarial perspectives can help in a pandemic

The analysis of risk (in particular, mortality, morbidity, or equivalent non-life claims incidence), and associated risk management;The mathematics of finance;Developing models of future relating to contingent events (typically, cash flow models), and related aspects such as an appreciation of model risk, and a mature approach to model validation. [...]in my field of work in the context of demographic risk, assumption setting, and the development of capital models in the UK and across EMEA, I have been surprised by the lack of interest and activity to date in considering how the pandemic might reasonably change our views of the future – whether best estimate or extreme scenarios. Overall, there are many ways that actuaries involved in life insurance and pension fund work in particular can help within their “formal” areas of expertise.

“I Have Only Checked after the Event”: Consumer Approaches to Safe Online Shopping

Online shopping has now become very common, with consumers increasingly opting to purchase products on the World Wide Web instead of visiting traditional "bricks and mortar" stores, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has, however, also provided significant opportunities for offenders to abuse the inherent trust-based nature of online shopping, whereby consumers typically do not see the products physically prior to purchasing them. As such, this article sets out to examine the actions and behaviors that individuals take to prevent online shopping fraud and what, if any, discrepancy exists between prevention messaging and consumer behavior. To accomplish this, the study utilizes secondary survey data (n = 3478 respondents) obtained from a private-sector initiative called ScamAdviser. The results find that many respondents do not use appropriate behaviors to reduce their risk when shopping online and that furthermore there is reason to believe that consumers are not served well by the online safety advice that they are given. The paper argues that there is scope to increase guardianship through better prevention advice being communicated to online shoppers.

Psychiatry in the Time of COVID: Credibility, Uncertainty, and Self-Reflection.

ABSTRACT: Public trust in the credibility of medicine and physicians has been severely tested amid the COVID-19 pandemic and growing sociopolitical fissures in the United States. Physicians are being asked to be ambassadors to the public of scientific information. Psychiatrists have an opportunity to help the public understand and accept a "new normal" during a time of such uncertainty. Using a case example, we review the impact of uncertainty and fear on scientific and medical credibility. Although the pandemic provides an opportunity for systemic change, the consequences of any change remain unknown. To help patients navigate the uncertainty, we conclude by offering four guidelines to clinicians: the public has little interest in understanding the scientific method; we need to acknowledge that we do not have all the answers; credibility and trustworthiness are linked to our ability to be trusted, believable messengers; and we can retain scientific credibility while acknowledging uncertainty.

A holistic approach for suppression of COVID-19 spread in workplaces and universities.

As society has moved past the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis that relied on broad-spectrum shutdowns as a stopgap method, industries and institutions have faced the daunting question of how to return to a stabilized state of activities and more fully reopen the economy. A core problem is how to return people to their workplaces and educational institutions in a manner that is safe, ethical, grounded in science, and takes into account the unique factors and needs of each organization and community. In this paper, we introduce an epidemiological model (the "Community-Workplace" model) that accounts for SARS-CoV-2 transmission within the workplace, within the surrounding community, and between them. We use this multi-group deterministic compartmental model to consider various testing strategies that, together with symptom screening, exposure tracking, and nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPI) such as mask wearing and physical distancing, aim to reduce disease spread in the workplace. Our framework is designed to be adaptable to a variety of specific workplace environments to support planning efforts as reopenings continue. Using this model, we consider a number of case studies, including an office workplace, a factory floor, and a university campus. Analysis of these cases illustrates that continuous testing can help a workplace avoid an outbreak by reducing undetected infectiousness even in high-contact environments. We find that a university setting, where individuals spend more time on campus and have a higher contact load, requires more testing to remain safe, compared to a factory or office setting. Under the modeling assumptions, we find that maintaining a prevalence below 3% can be achieved in an office setting by testing its workforce every two weeks, whereas achieving this same goal for a university could require as much as fourfold more testing (i.e., testing the entire campus population twice a week). Our model also simulates the dynamics of reduced spread that result from the introduction of mitigation measures when test results reveal the early stages of a workplace outbreak. We use this to show that a vigilant university that has the ability to quickly react to outbreaks can be justified in implementing testing at the same rate as a lower-risk office workplace. Finally, we quantify the devastating impact that an outbreak in a small-town college could have on the surrounding community, which supports the notion that communities can be better protected by supporting their local places of business in preventing onsite spread of disease.