Victorian scientists would have immediately recognized many of the core categories of data assembled by epidemiologists working on Covid-19: infections, deaths, locations and so on. Today’s vital statisticians obviously have access to a wider pool of information — antibody-test results, comorbidities of victims, even different genetic strains of the virus — than Farr was able to assemble. And they have software that allows them to build models that project the epidemiological curve that Farr first identified.
Steven Johnson, The New York Times Magazine
If you enjoy good non-fiction, or stories about the history of science & innovation, Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map was one of my favorites reads of last year. It tells the story of the London Cholera Epidemic of 1854, how John Snow and Henry Whitehead solved its mystery, and in turn how they “changed science, cities and the modern world.”
It’s also, given the pandemic, not surprisingly an extremely timely read.
Steven Johnson’s essay in this past week’s New York Time Magazine, “How Data Became One of the Most Powerful Tools to Fight and Epidemic,” tells the story of William Farr who pushed John Snow’s thinking forward. It’s also extremely relevant and feels like it could be either a prologue or an epilogue to The Ghost Map.
Additionally, it’s an interesting look to the future of epidemiology and the use of data to protect public health.