Thank you for the comment @GavrielK!

On one of your thoughts:

I've personally received conflicting opinions from people in the field about how much policymakers care about/pay attention to in-depth analyses that they didn't actually commission. I like that this analysis format will result in a solid headline number that can be communicated simply.

I think the skepticism from people in the field is warranted. And I agree it's attractive that this project will result in a headline number -- this is definitely what Vivian and Richard have in mind. But I think there's a related risk of the project here: because the (at least MVP) analysis will be less in-depth, the headline number will be easier to undermine.

On your questions:

I'm sort of surprised that this needed to be pursued through independent funding [...] What's the missing expertise that Qally's brings to the table, and why isn't CHS backing this piece of the project?

I think the missing expertise is: having the time to do the work! My understanding is that the project hasn't moved for a few months for this reason. That said, since posting this project on Manifund, I'm less confident that Vivian would not contribute (further than they already have) to the nitty gritty of the long COVID estimates; I guess this is mostly upside from your perspective.

As for why CHS isn't backing this project, I think there's a mix of (1) limited JHCHS staff capacity, and (2) part of the original motivation of this project being Vivian receiving mentorship from Richard. (I am happy to explore the possibility of funding from JHCHS at some point.)

The think-tank-friendliness of it reduces the failure risk from the team not having time to write up results--possibly could rope in the dedicated policy advocates at IfP or Rethink for advocacy-style writing?

Could you possibly expand on what roping in dedicated policy advocates would involve? Asking them to produce a document that reads like a policy report, given our less friendly write-up? And perhaps asking them to share this document with contacts in government and media?

Are you also considering long-term costs of other viruses? Just curious--I know this is much more speculative, but my impression is that COVID just had the most attention on it for a while and now there's increasing scientific interest in possible long-term effects of flu. That would also emphasize the importance of endemic disease. But could be way too complicated, just wondering if it was discussed!

Aron and I are not, at least not right now. But Vivian and Richard have so far considered: common cold, influenza, and TB.

You reference researching other contributions to disease burden as a possible extension of this project--what contributions would those be, if the bulk of the project has already been completed?

The other components that Vivian has marked as needing to be revisited are: mainline estimates of direct medical costs of common cold and of influenza, lost productivity from influenza, and learning loss due to common cold and influenza. They already have low and high estimates for each of these, but I think hasn't thought about which of these estimates is more appropriate (which in turn would affect their averaging for the mainline estimate).

@joel_bkr Sorry for missing this before! In response to "Could you possibly expand on what roping in dedicated policy advocates would involve?": Yes, looks like writing a policy report, possibly including reasonable policy recommendations, and socializing the report/publishing it in a place that media and policymakers are more likely to see. To be fair, any possible partners would have existing priorities and I can understand the difficulty of finding anyone who has serious time to dedicate to this.

Thank you for taking the time to review, @Austin!

I'd be excited to talk about Manifund becoming a client. Do you have a project in mind?

Thanks for the questions @NunoSempere.

Do you already have some decision-makers who could use these estimates to make different decisions?

Waiting on some emails that will help me answer this; will get back to you soon.

How valuable do you think that this project is without the long covid estimate?

I just put this question to Vivian, who says: "I think without the long covid estimate it probably just never gets published."

Who is actually doing this work? Vivian and Richard, or Joel and Aron?

Joel and Aron. (If "this work" refers to building the long COVID estimate.)

Why are you doing stuff $3.6k a time, rather than having set up some larger project with existing biosecurity grantmakers?

Very possible that I've made a silly decision somewhere, but here's how it looks from my side:

1. Earlier this year I applied to LTFF and Lightspeed for ~general funding for Qally's. These applications were rejected.

   1. I think rejection was the right call -- even if you think higher-effort quantitative analyses are worthwhile, it's preferable for them to come with demand signals rather than subsidizing my discretionary offerings.

2. I didn't apply to ~any other projects nor sources of funding because of my US work visa stuff.

   1. Mostly this is 'getting a US work visa attached to your own new organization requires a lot of time.'

   2. To a lesser extent this is 'the expected benefit of finding new projects is lower than usual, because I would only proceed with these projects if I was approved for the visa.'

3. My visa petition was approved ~4 weeks ago; I have started to seriously look for projects in that time. One project that came up was this one. It currently doesn't have a source of funding, so I put up a Manifund proposal.

4. All that said, I would, of course, like to work >$3.6k at a time. A few things on this:

   1. I hope that this application will attract more than the minimum!

   2. It's plausible that this will be a larger project. There are a bunch of other things to work on for this project, which I currently have cached as 'things Vivian or Richard will do' or 'things that aren't necessary for MVP.'

   3. I almost feel like I don't know other existing biosecurity grantmakers...! Linch has moved away from this sort of thing. Open Philanthropy staff are in the business of larger amounts of money. My uninvestigated understanding from this proposal is that Convergent Research (where Vivian has recently worked) aren't able to fund adjacent projects. So I posted on Manifund and notified @GavrielK. (I'm apparently allowed to fund myself, but don't want to.)

   4. There is another project that I might take on, which I expect would be ~full-time for many months.