Pox parties, also known as flu parties, are social activities in which children are deliberately exposed to infectious diseases such as chickenpox. Such parties originated to "get it over with" before vaccines were available for a particular illness or because childhood infection might be less severe than infection during adulthood, according to proponents. For example, measles is more dangerous to adults than to children over five years old. Deliberately exposing people to diseases has since been discouraged by public health officials in favor of vaccination, which has caused a decline in the practice of pox parties, although flu parties saw a resurgence in the early 2010s.
The Eureka Prizes are awarded annually by the Australian Museum, Sydney, to recognise individuals and organisations who have contributed to science and the understanding of science in Australia. They were founded in 1990 following a suggestion by science journalist Robyn Williams.
Sunetra Gupta is an Indian-born British infectious disease epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. She has performed research on the transmission dynamics of various infectious diseases, including malaria, influenza and COVID-19, and has received the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London and the Rosalind Franklin Award of the Royal Society. She is a member of the scientific advisory board of Collateral Global, an organisation which examines the global impact of COVID-19 restrictions.
Gagandeep Kang FRS is an Indian microbiologist and virologist who has been leading the work on enteric diseases, diarrheal infections and disease surveillance at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since 2023.
Sir Christopher John MacRae Whitty is a British epidemiologist, serving as Chief Medical Officer for England and Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government since 2019.
Syra Madad is an American pathogen preparedness expert and infectious disease epidemiologist. Madad is the Senior Director of the System-wide Special Pathogens Program at NYC Health + Hospitals where she is part of the executive leadership team which oversees New York City's response to the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the city's 11 public hospitals. She was featured in the Netflix documentary series Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak and the Discovery Channel documentary The Vaccine: Conquering COVID.
Bonnie J. Fraser Henry is a Canadian epidemiologist, physician, and public servant who has been the provincial health officer at the British Columbia Ministry of Health since 2014. Henry is also a clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia. She is a specialist in public health and preventive medicine, and is a family doctor. In her role as provincial health officer, Henry notably led the response to COVID-19 in British Columbia (BC).
Nils Anders Tegnell is a Swedish civil servant and physician specialising in infectious disease. From 2013 until his resignation in March 2022 he was Sweden's state epidemiologist.
Caitlin M. Rivers is an American epidemiologist who as Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, specializing on improving epidemic preparedness. Rivers is currently working on the American response to the COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on the incorporation of infectious disease modeling and forecasting into public health decision making.
Kizzmekia "Kizzy" Shanta Corbett is an American viral immunologist. She is an Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Shutzer Assistant Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute since June 2021.
Allison Joan McGeer is a Canadian infectious disease specialist in the Sinai Health System, and a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She also appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a Senior Clinician Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, and is a partner of the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. McGeer has led investigations into the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Toronto and worked alongside Donald Low. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McGeer has studied how SARS-CoV-2 survives in the air and has served on several provincial committees advising aspects of the Government of Ontario's pandemic response.
Sotiris Tsiodras is a Greek internal medicine physician, specializing in infectiology, in charge of Greece's management of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 crisis.
Helen Branswell is a Canadian infectious diseases and global health reporter at Stat News. Branswell spent fifteen years as a medical reporter at The Canadian Press, where she led coverage of the Ebola, Zika, SARS and swine flu pandemics. She joined Stat News at its founding 2015, leading the website's coverage of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Nicola Mary Turner is a New Zealand public health advocate who is a Professor at the University of Auckland and Medical Director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre, an organisation that advises the New Zealand medical profession and the New Zealand Government. She has contributed to advisory committees for the New Zealand Ministry of Health, is a spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group and works in general practice. Much of her research and outreach has focused on improving immunisation coverage and closing equity gaps for the national schedule vaccine delivery in New Zealand and she has commented publicly on these issues during COVID-19 in New Zealand.
Saskia Popescu is an infectious disease epidemiologist and global health security expert in Phoenix, Arizona. She is an Assistant Professor of epidemiology at the University of Maryland, and holds academic appointments at the University of Arizona and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, where she lectures on biopreparedness and outbreak response. Since the start of the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, Popescu has worked to prepare for and mitigate the spread of the disease within healthcare and the entertainment industry, where she led the global epidemiology and infection prevention response for Netflix. She has been recognized for her communication efforts around the pandemic, as well as her work on the front lines in infection prevention and healthcare biopreparedness. Popescu currently is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks, addressing converging biological risks from biological weapons nonproliferation, biosecurity, emerging infectious diseases and ecological security, biopreparedness in private industry, and global health security vulnerabilities.
Michael Joseph Mina is an American epidemiologist, immunologist and physician. He was formerly an assistant professor of Epidemiology & Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, assistant Professor of Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and currently Chief Medical Officer at eMed. and Chief Medical and Science Officer at Oncodea.
Helen Siobhan Marshall is an Australian medical researcher who is Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Adelaide. She was named the South Australian of the Year for 2022.
This timeline includes entries on the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This includes investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 which is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Social media apps and platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and YouTube, have contributed to the spread of misinformation. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) reported that conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 began on "day one". CAHN reported on March 16, 2020, that far-right groups in Canada were taking advantage of the climate of anxiety and fear surrounding COVID, to recycle variations of conspiracies from the 1990s, that people had shared over shortwave radio. COVID-19 disinformation is intentional and seeks to create uncertainty and confusion. But most of the misinformation is shared online unintentionally by enthusiastic participants who are politically active.
Professor Asha Bowen is an Australian Paediatric Infectious Diseases clinician-scientist and a leading voice and advocate for children's health and well-being. She is Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Perth Children's Hospital, and Head of the Healthy Skin and ARF Prevention team at Telethon Kids Institute. She was the former Program Head of the End Rheumatic Heart Disease program (2022-2023) at the Telethon Kids Institute. Bowen leads a large body of skin health research in partnership with healthcare workers and community in the Kimberley while expanding her team and work to understand skin health in urban Aboriginal children better. She has been widely acknowledged and awarded for her contributions towards improving the health and well-being of Australian children, and addressing existing health inequities faced by First Nations Australian children and their families. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic she contributed her knowledge and expertise to clinical research, guideline development and on several national and public health committees. She has published widely in the area of paediatric infectious diseases and is a recognized expert in the field who regularly contributes to popular Australian media sources such as The Conversation.
John Gerrard is currently the Chief Health Officer of Queensland, beginning the role in December 2021. Gerrard has a record in research of emerging infectious diseases and vaccine development, investigating AIDS in Australia and dealing with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. Gerrard has additionally become notable during the COVID-19 Pandemic, previously working as a director of infectious diseases at the Gold Coast University Hospital and being the first doctor in Queensland to treat a COVID-19 patient.
