Academics curating New Zealand¡¯s scientific response to the Covid crisis have been gifted an opportunity seldom available to their overseas peers, according to University of Canterbury mathematician Alex James.

A modeller with the?, Dr James usually investigates ecosystems and other biological phenomena. That all changed when the danger from the coronavirus became apparent in March.

¡°We were doing equations on the back of an envelope and realised, this could be really bad,¡± she said. The centre pivoted to Covid-related modelling and fed the results to the government.

¡°A couple of months later they started funding us. Slowly but surely, we built up very good communications with the various government departments. The things that we¡¯re doing are completely led by them ¨C people in government saying, ¡®We want to classify countries by risk. Which nationalities is it safest to let in? Is it worth buying this vaccine? Or should we buy that vaccine?¡¯

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¡°It¡¯s incredible. I don¡¯t think I could be doing this anywhere else in the world.¡±

The opportunity arose partly thanks to the country¡¯s size, Dr James said. ¡°No other group in the country has the skills we have. If we were in Britain or America, there would be dozens of groups fighting for the government¡¯s ear.

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¡°Other countries have mathematical epidemiologists who do very specialised public health work. We don¡¯t, but mathematical epidemiology is part of any modeller¡¯s toolkit.¡±

New Zealand¡¯s ¡°strong science-led approach¡± has been the other big factor. Dr James said the centre¡¯s work sometimes featured in the ¡°Jacinda and Ashley show¡± ¨C the daily briefing by prime minister Jacinda Ardern and health chief Ashley Bloomfield.

¡°Very occasionally, we¡¯ve seen Jacinda holding one of our graphs,¡± Dr James said. ¡°There is no prouder moment than when you can Facebook that to your mum.¡±

Such influence was unprecedented, she said. ¡°We are classic academics. If we get five citations on a paper, we¡¯re really proud. I do very applied work and it has impact, but not on a scale like this.¡±

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But can such dialogue survive the pandemic? ¡°It¡¯s quite expensive to get a bunch of academics working on something like this, so government needs a very present problem to justify the cost.

¡°Usually these things proceed more slowly, tendered out through some big funding scheme, because the problem is long term. Whereas this problem is: ¡®We need to bid for a vaccine yesterday.¡¯¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com