Joshua S. Weitz at the Harvard Science Center

Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University Division of Science, and the Harvard Library welcome Joshua S. Weitz—a professor of biology and the Clark Leadership Chair in Data Analytics at the University of Maryland—for a discussion of his new book Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics. He will be joined in conversation by Dr. Bill Hanage—is a Professor of Epidemiology and Associate-Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. This event will take place at the Harvard Science Center, located at 1 Oxford St, Cambridge. We will update this event page with the exact lecture hall the presentation will be in before the event.

There are two ticket options available for this event. Following the presentation will be a reception and book signing in the Cabot Science Library across the hall from the presentation room.

Free General Admission Ticket: Includes admission for one.

Book-Included Ticket: Includes admission for one and one paperback copy of Asymptomatic.

The riveting account of how asymptomatic transmission drove COVID-19's global spread and catalyzed interventions to control it.

Why was COVID-19 so difficult to contain and so devastating to people and economies worldwide? In Asymptomatic, author Joshua S. Weitz explains how silent transmission enabled COVID-19's massive and tragic global impact.
Weaving the science of viral infections together with an insider's look at response efforts, Weitz guides readers through the shockwaves of successive epidemic waves as public health officials and academic research teams confronted the rise and risk of what was then a burgeoning global pandemic. The discovery of asymptomatic spread also fueled competing narratives: either COVID-19 was about to dissipate as quickly as it had emerged or completely disrupt life as we knew it.
Weitz, a physicist-turned-biologist who directs a quantitative viral dynamics research group and has been immersed in COVID-19 response efforts, explains both why and how scientists tried to wade through competing narratives and warn the public of COVID-19's profound risk. As explored through a careful analysis of local outbreaks, accessible descriptions of virus dynamics, and the use of predictive models to guide response efforts, Asymptomatic provides readers a unique look into the secret ingredient that allowed COVID-19 to spread across borders and the high-impact interventions needed to fight it and future pandemics.

Joshua S. Weitz is a Professor of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park where he holds the Clark Leadership Chair in Data Analytics and is a Faculty member of the Institute for Health Computing. Previously, he held the Tom and Marie Patton Chair at Georgia Tech where he founded the Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences. Weitz received his PhD in Physics from MIT in 2003 and did postdoctoral training in ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton from 2003-2006. Weitz directs an interdisciplinary group focusing on understanding how viruses transform human and environmental health. Weitz is the author of multiple textbooks on quantitative modeling of living systems and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and a Simons Foundation Investigator in the Theoretical Physics of Living Systems.

Dr. Bill Hanage is a Professor of Epidemiology and Associate-Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. His research and teaching focus on the epidemiology of infectious disease and the evolution of infectious agents. He received his PhD from Imperial College London. Dr Hanage’s work has studied many different microbes, both bacteria and viruses, and he is especially interested in how infectious threats evolve in response to interventions such as vaccination or antimicrobials. His awards include the Fleming Prize from the Microbiology Society and a young investigator award from the American Society for Microbiology. He has published more than 200 scientific articles and book chapters and is a regular contributor to popular media aiming to improve public understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and other infectious diseases.

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

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